Celtic Frost's next album Cold Lake (1988) saw a new lineup, and a stark change of style, which was widely derided due to its commercial and flamboyant tone. [2] [4] After the release of Vanity/Nemesis (1990), the group temporarily disbanded. Celtic Frost then re-formed in 2001 and released the critically acclaimed Monotheist (2006), and finally disbanded permanently following Fischer's departure in 2008. [6] Fling wide the gates of Hell! Your prodigal Son has returned". Facebook.com. 13 September 2018. Archived from the original on 26 February 2022 . Retrieved 16 June 2020. Bryant fired Amberg, and so former live show guitarist Ron Marks returned to the band for the recording of Vanity/Nemesis in 1990. The other significant change, was the return of early bassist Martin Eric Ain, but despite this, Celtic Frost's reputation did not fully recover from the disappointment caused by Cold Lake. The group's label released a collection of rare recordings called Parched with Thirst Am I and Dying (1992), the title of which is taken from an old Roman prayer. [17] It featured unreleased material, re-recorded versions of older songs, and some studio session versions. [17] If there is a problem with Celtic Frost in this period it isn’t our problem but unfortunately theirs. They didn’t just identify one new area to move into but were constantly and simultaneously breaking new ground in many different ways, innovating but very rarely consolidating, minting sounds and styles as they zipped past, like it was no problem to them at all. Into The Pandemonium is one of those rare albums that entirely lives up to its name, a thing of such shifting and seismic beauty, it’s almost still impossible to get a true handle on it, marking Celtic Frost out as not just a band ahead of their time but also one ahead of their space. It also marks them out as a band who were using up all of their own potential roads in every single direction at an insane pace, creating maps for others who would follow, while getting little of the benefit themselves in the short term. All the more reason why we should hail them as brilliant modernists now.

To Mega Therion’ was Celtic Frost’s next album, recorded in September ‘85. Due to personal difficulties, Martin was not in the band at that point, and so bass duties for the recording were carried out by session player Dominic Steiner. Martin’s absence also meant that Tom was responsible for the music and virtually all of the lyrics. But despite difficult circumstances, the resulting album, however, was a triumph. Replete with iconic cover art by HR Giger, ‘To Mega Therion’ imposes its dark majesty from the off with the orchestral bombast of ‘Innocence And Wrath’, before launching into the savagery of the hook laden ‘The Usurper’. Daring, dark and superlatively heavy, ‘To Mega Therion’ is a sophisticated expression of Celtic Frost’s inherent drive to eschew genre limitations and, instead, define art on their own terms. Each is not only unique, but part of an entire tapestry that only now can be appreciated for being a remarkable part of music history. Despite, or maybe because of, constant turmoil on so many fronts, Celtic Frost achieved an artistic level few others would even have dared to dream of aspiring towards. They climbed high because they were never afraid to fall. Which is why the band are now rightly regarded as icons, and iconoclasts. The strange thing is that while nobody would deny Celtic Frost’s importance now, at the time, the metal press was distinctly sniffy – especially Kerrang! “Morbid Tales got one out of five Ks,” Warrior says. “And it was ripped apart in the review. Whereas it’s one of the most important albums I’ve ever written. But we also understood Kerrang!’s approach, because it was the centre of the universe at the time.That band was Celtic Frost. Everything about this new outfit was to be different. Warrior and Ain wanted it to have the power and excitement of the thrash metal bands emerging in the US, but the ultimate intent was to not be constrained by metal’s self-imposed rules – an attitude shaped by the band’s geographical isolation from the mainstream metal scene. “It was a constant conflict, because we loved metal. At the same time, however, we were conflicted by feeling that metal is so limited, that there were albums with notes saying: ‘No keyboards on this album’, and so on, like it was something evil,” he recalls. “We felt, where are these unwritten laws that say you cannot combine a keyboard with metal, or you cannot combine classical music with metal? We didn’t want to accept this. We were anarchists.” A very limited edition Glow In The Dark vinyl variant edition of the LP box set will be available via EMP and Nuclear Blast online. This is limited to 1000 units. Just as then, today as a 59-year-old man and reluctant metal legend, Tom believes that music should be something without walls, without limits, a deep expression of its creator. With current band Triptykon, its’s a route he continues to take, brilliantly searching the shadows for ever-darker shades of music.

Celtic Frost's frontman, guitarist and singer Tom Gabriel Fischer, adopted the alias Tom Warrior. With Steve Warrior on bass, he formed one of the earliest extreme metal bands, Hellhammer, in 1981. Steve Warrior was later replaced by Martin Eric Ain – also a pseudonym. The band attracted a small international fan-base, was signed to Noise Records in Germany, and recorded their debut EP Apocalyptic Raids in March 1984. Stylistic changes, internal struggles, and first breakup (1987–1993) [ edit ] Into the Pandemonium was Celtic Frost’s second full length album. The album employs a variety of musical styles. The better reception to the album was vindicating. Journalists – and here Tom gratefully notes Kerrang! writers Malcolm Dome, Xavier Russell, Paul Elliott and Dante Bonutto – began to understand that they wanted to be a different kind of metal band. Not only that, for the first time the band began playing live, making their London debut at the Hammersmith Palais. Convinced, Noise asked CELTIC FROST to record a mini-LP, even though that hadn't formed part of Warrior and Ain's concept document. Undeterred, and propelled by a burning urgency, CELTIC FROST set out to write and record a full-length LP in a matter of a few months. "Morbid Tales" was recorded with Horst Müller in Berlin and was unlike anything else. Intensely heavy, nuanced and experimental, the record was a radical musical statement of intent; a stunning synthesis of Warrior and Ain's disparate influences. From the furious opening riff of "Into The Crypts Of Rays" through to the avant-garde experimentation of "Danse Macabre", "Morbid Tales" heralded the arrival of CELTIC FROST as a profoundly unique and uncompromising band. Convinced, Noise asked Celtic Frost to record a mini-LP, even though that hadn’t formed part of Warrior and Ain’s concept document. Undeterred, and propelled by a burning urgency, Celtic Frost set out to write and record a full-length LP in a matter of a few months. ‘Morbid Tales’ was recorded with Horst Müller in Berlin and was unlike anything else. Intensely heavy, nuanced and experimental, the record was a radical musical statement of intent, a stunning synthesis of Warrior and Ain’s disparate influences. From the furious opening riff of ‘Into The Crypts Of Rays’ through to the avant-garde experimentation of ‘Danse Macabre’, ‘Morbid Tales’ heralded the arrival of Celtic Frost as a profoundly unique and uncompromising band.

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Tom G. Warrior Interview". About.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015 . Retrieved 24 January 2013.

In 1987, Celtic Frost released their second full length studio album Into the Pandemonium. The album is noticeably eclectic in comparison to Celtic Frost's prior works. The album boasts love songs, industrial rhythmic pieces, several instances of symphony or operatic influence, several parts for a female vocalist, and an unlikely cover of Wall of Voodoo's " Mexican Radio." Danse Macabre’ captures the radical ambition and evolution of Celtic Frost from 1984 through to 1987. In addition to the albums Morbid Tales’, ‘To Mega Therion’ and ‘Into The Pandemonium’, the 7 marble color vinyl box set also includes the ‘Emperor’s Return’, ‘Tragic Serenades’ and ‘I Won’t Dance’ EPs, along with Where the influence of bands like Joy Division and Siouxsie And The Banshees added to the band’s musical palette, visually To Mega Therion found Celtic Frost working with another Swiss outsider: genius artist H.R. Giger. Though by now the owner of an Oscar for his work on Alien, for much of his career Giger had been subject to similar criticisms as Hellhammer and Frost. His paintings were too dark, the art world had said, too weird, too unconventional. His ideas were dangerous, offensive, blasphemous. If it was easy to become an outsider in the eyes of the state, it was even easier to do it in the eyes of one’s neighbours. As the only divorced household in their village, reception to Tom and his mother after his parents separated aged six had been cold. Even this didn’t compare to the details of his living situation, where he would be left to fend for himself while his mother went away for extended periods as a smuggler. He was another outsider in Switzerland,” says Tom. “And of course, the Hollywood thing only came after years of struggle, where he too was pushed into the underground for a long time. Because he was doing dark art that one doesn’t do. I think the level on which he connected to us was because he discovered some parallels in the struggle and in the origin of what we were creating.Doe, Bernard (December 2007). " 'Death Fiends': A Short Biography of Hellhammer". Century Media Records. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008 . Retrieved 10 May 2008. I’m not overstating it when I say they hated it,” says Tom. “They hated every aspect of this album. And they let us know almost every day. I was mainly engaged in producing the album, as I wrote almost all of the music, and Martin was handling the phone calls, which wasn’t an easy job either. He was getting extreme negativity from Noise Records, threats that they’d cut the production, that they would withdraw the budget for the album, that they would send us home.”