So for Celtic Frost, I listened to some bits of their earlier albums, notably Into The Pandemonium, and it just struck me as thrash...Now if you know me by my previous posts I HATE to genre-fize something, but if it falls within those brackets, people are going to label. My understanding of AGM is that those brackets are kind of ODD and loosely defined, and very much progressive and sometime just for the sake of being overly progressive.

Now what little of CF I have heard, it sound comparable to Testament or Metallica. Was it truly unique for those days? I can not say for certain yet. What are your thoughts on how CF fits in with the 'genre' of AGM?

For me, Celtic Frost is AGM? However, I know little about the first albums, which were probably less experimental...

Celtic Frost has always played Celtic Frost Metal, that's all. Their first albums were comparable to some thrash metal bands, of course, but to me it sounded way more heavy without the need of playing death metal. This applies to the band Hellhammer, too.
So I'd say they have moved in the really heavy thrash metal circle, standing on their own by their own original sound and trademark, and at one point they showed they didn't care to do some things that 'normal everyday' thrash metal bands wouldn't dare doing (Into the Pandemonium stuff).
The Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis albums touched the glam/hard rock circles while retaining a bit of thrash metal still, resulting in a less original sound (to me).

CELTIC FROST 1985-1986 (Emperor's Return, Morbid Tales and To Mega Therion) are equally black, death and thrash metal. By today's genre standards, I suppose thrash is most correct (they were not satanists, did not sound like Bathory so not BM, and are not as brutal as Death et c so not DM).

But, you have to see the band in a historical context. All through the early years of Celtic Frost, they had a progressive, experimental strain. Danse Macabre from their earliest release, as well as Nocturnal Fear had some pretty far out stuff, for extreme metal in that day. To Mega Therion had the timpanis and horns, and an artistic vibe since they used HR Giger's art as cover, not some generic heavy metal cartoon. And Into The Pandemonium... well, that was the first avantgarde-metal album. Actually, it was in a review from Kerrang! (July 1987) that said "this is [img]the[/img] most avantgarde death metal album ever!" or something similar. Note that he called them death metal, as late as 1987.

With today's standards, there's not much on Into The Pandemonium that stands out, but that's the way with all 1980's metal; everything has been topped. So what made Into The Pandemonium unique for it's day?
Well, musically, they flirted with many other genres than extreme metal. New wave pop music with the WALLS OF VOODOO cover, "Mexican Radio". Art music with the string sections in "Tristesse De La Lune" and "Requiem: Rex Irae". Electronic music with the "One In Their Pride" remix. Middle Eastern music on "Caress Into Oblivion". They used poetry from Emily Brontë in "Inner Sanctum" (poem called "Sleep Brings No Joy To Me") - even the thrashiest song on the album became high-brow. And, supposedly, Gustave Flaubert inspired the lyrics to "Mesmerized". And again, they used "accepted" art for the cover (Hieronymus Bosch I think), from what I understand one of the first metal bands ever to do so.
This just hadn't been done before in extreme metal - they were breaking the boundaries they had been part of building up.

I'll even quote the band (from the 1999 cd reissue):
(Martin Eric Ain)

(Tom G Warrior)

(Reed St Mark)

Their experimentation was a conscious effort to break the boundaries of extreme metal. Thus, to me, Into The Pandemonium is not only the first, but one of the most pivotal avantgarde-metal albums, ever.

Let it be duly noted though, that I wouldn't consider any of their other albums AGM. 1985-87 + 2005 is KING OF ALL KINGS, but that is as far as I'll go.

Celtic Frost classification is World Class Heavy Metal. PERIOD !!!!!

Now as far as those clever journalist who coined the terms NWOBHM, Speed Metal, Power Metal, thrash metal, death metal, and black metal. They never said what the rules were, in the first place. Oh never mind, I never cared about the song-writing rules in the first place, certain rules were made to be broken.

Since I listen to Celtic Frost alot, I have always noticed a big Black Sabbath meets Motorhead meets Venom meets Discharge type of vibe to the guitar tone, aggression and the song-writing.

What makes the early Noise Records, Noise International, Metal Blade (Morbid Tales, Emperors Return), Combat (Into the Pandemonium, Tragic Serenades) catalogue, so timeless to me, it did not matter if I threw in their records between Trouble or Witchfinder General or Bathory or Slayer, they were always fresh sounding no matter how many times a day, I played their records.

I remember when "Into the Pandemonium" got a 0 out a 100 points in Metal Forces Magazine back in 1987. I have to say, looking back on that METAL F "a" RCES review nowadays, on the next page over, Metal Forces got the Attacker " Second Coming" Review correct 98 points out of a 100, but totally dropped the ball on " Into the Pandemonium" review. Totally unreal/ surreal, seeing that bullshit fradulent review, in a metal publication, i thought maybe Tipper Gore or someone like that scribbled those words together.

Every year I make a top 100 or so favorite Megaforce/ Important, Combat, Music For Nations, Metal Blade/ Enigma, Metal Blade/ Restless, Roadrunner/ Boots, Roadrunner/ Steamhammer/ SPV, Noise/ SPV, Neat/ Pinnacle Records essentials (1981-1986), and Celtic Frost first 5 releases made the list again, for 24th year in a row... "Morbid Tales", "Emperor's Return", "To Mega Therion", "Tragic Sernades", "Into The Pandemonium". I am always out on the l@@kout for the first pressing CD's that I play on a daily basis. I hate RE-ISSUES with a passion.

This legendary band, even made the print edition of AGM classics 1987-2000 !!!!! Take that Bernard Doe !!!!.... since this band was so peerless and timeless during its inception; and during its classic era, it was just a matter of time, untill the rest of the world got caught up to speed on too what they were doing.

LONG LIVE CELTIC FROST !!!!!!!

METAL!

I'd say that Amebix was more "brutal" than Celtic Frost in that time (till the mid of the 80s), they even sound kind of simmilar....both have a great motorhead and discharge influence in my humble mind

...I'd say that Amebix was more "brutal" than Celtic Frost in that time (till the mid of the 80s), they even sound kind of simmilar....both have a great motorhead and discharge influence in my humble mind...
Quote by Ulv
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Thanks for the hot tip Ulv, yeah I remember this band in interviews when Sepultura was a big and upcoming band with their own brand of Celtic Frost meets Discharge meets the Venom family of bands, and they did mention this band Amebix alot in interviews, they really slipped my mind, because.

I lost interest in this kind of stuff when Metal Blade closed there Death Records sub-label for crossover bands, and Combat closed its Combat Core sublabel in 1986/1987, and I did not enjoy most of the Music for Nations sublabel artist on Under One Flag and Rough Justice. But one reason I over looked Amebix during that time frame was my total obsession with the Black Flag catalogue, which I even have till this day. I like the songwriting to all there classic era albums (1981-1985).

Instead of Amebix: I choose stuff like Corrosion of Conformity, Hirax, Stormtroopers of Death, The Accused and Cryptic Slaughter instead.

I do remember looking this band up in those vinyl databases the record stores, and seeing the album title " Arise " and Sepultura had this title years later.

One band that really got the Celtic Frost meets Discharge style with 100% perfection was CANADA'S Slaughter "Strappado" (no not the Mark Slaughter who fronted X-Cursion, Vinnie Vincent band his own "Up all night Sleep all day" hair band Slaughter. And Michigans Repuslion with first there "Slaughter of the Innocent" demo in 1986, and retilted "Horrified" in 1989 on the Earache sublabel Necrosis.

But on this topic of Celtic Frost classification, I say once a band was Avant Garde anytime in the past, the do not loss there Avant Garde Classification to me. The highest complement the world can give to any artist is the Avant Garde classification, and once it is obtained, i do not think that fact of being avant garde at any point in time goes away, because the world finally catches up to speed with the innovator. When the students (the kids watching the concert) one day becomes smarter than the teacher (the band on stage). I do not think the teacher, then should be made to enter the classroom one again (the concert hall), as a freshman (sneaking into a show, because the fake ID was left at home), and losing all there credits (trust, respect, legendary status).

During my Power Metal/ thrash metal/ death and black metal early developement of a fan of those new sub-genres I never sold my proto Power Metal and NWOBHM metal classics, to get these, new Molten metal sounds. I could be wrong on this, but I do not think a band can be timeless, untill they become peerless. And I never turned my back on a originator artist, because tons of bands, took the phrase "imitation is the sincerest form of flatter" way to far, in every apsect of their style.

I mean, I really like them. Celtic Frost is good, and at the time they were playing they were doing something most people were not doing. Kudos for that. Today its a lot harder to be so-called AG, because there are more bands forming every day. Some bands play conventional, others dont. Crapshoot on who gets noticed, but its not that uncommon. There could be musical geniuses in India we dont even know about, who are possibly 20 years ahead of their time. I like when bands do this but I also dont like it to sound forced or ...dare I say...contrived? I say that because they take from their contemporaries or influences too much, and try and fit as many as possible for the sake of doing it. See Psykup http://www.myspace.com/psykup

"What genre are do assoicate with Celtic Frost?"

GODZ.

Indeed, I re-listened to Into the Pandemonium and I was kind of shocked this was 1987. I like to use progressive more than I like to use avant, but I can seriously say without a shadow of a doubt they were playing Avant/Thrash. It's a lot stranger than some of the shit I even hear, today!

http://metal-archives.com/release.php?id=104518 "Incantation Against You" is an a-cappella song (no instruments), it was recorded by longtime female studio vocalist Simone Vollenweider, backed only by a male choir. The song was inspired by Mesopotamian ritual writings of banishment and the “Maklu” text in the Necronomicon; it was written by Martin Eric Ain and Simone Vollenweider."

the decision to publish the song feat Simone Vollenweider on vinyl edition basically broke down my will to hold the CD (with the song totengott instead); http://www.filestube.com/07777cb075c886 ... tails.html

cdax2307,

"contrived".... you should be following your opinion consistently. I don't think you have the ammount of time to track all the possible variations of a recording process and even if you had the time to dissect you won't prove anything

No idea what you are trying to hint at, and opinions do change. This is why I made this thread, for that discussion. If I feel something is contrived at a point in time, then I feel it is. Could I be wrong? Sure, its subjective.

There is no way to track everything, youre right. The fact stands that when more people try to be unique, or "bungle-esque", all crazy and whatnot, it is definitely derivative of the ones who pushed the boundaries, and invented their style of music, in the first place. I can always spot the difference between 'respect' and 'worship'.