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Rating:
"The most avant-garde metal album that will ever be made", this was how in 1987 the metal magazine Kerrang defined the third album by Celtic Frost, perhaps not even imagining that 23 years later its primacy in avant-garde and experimentation would not be surpassed and not even fully understood even in these times where you hear everything and more.
Its art is intact and vibrant, permeated with epic and dark atmospheres, embracing influences of all kinds in its coils. The typically Celtic Frost metal is enveloped by classical sounds and lyrical voices, electronic music, theatrical opera, gothic and dark-wave sounds, all rendered fluid and immediate enough to confuse the listener, tossing them into completely different atmospheres from one track to another. Right from the opener "Mexican Radio" (a cover of Wall Of Voodoo) the disc's rule-free air is palpable, as the catchy verses of the song merge with the heavy electric guitar and Warrior's hoarse voice, a voice that in "Mesmerized" abandons its classic tone and settles into a tormented and afflicted singing, the metallic guitars become thin and shrill until releasing a sad chant accompanied by the soprano voice of Claudia Maria Mokri.
"Inner Sanctum", filled with tempo changes, is indelibly marked by the work of each musician, a black gem suffocated by suffocating tempos and restarts, nourished by violence and latent anger. In this work, the Frost highlight all their influences, musical and otherwise, forming a concept far from any canon, the highly inspired lyrics for the most part talk about the last days before the fall of Babylon, the decline and fall of a civilization, texts that are true and proper poems, as indeed happens in the following "Tristesses De La Lune", a poem recited by a vibrant female voice accompanied by classical music instrumentation (violins, oboe, etc...), plunging the listener into a state of enchanted bewilderment.
The atmosphere returns to morbid with the crazy "Babylon Fell (Jade Serpent)", a sinister and twisted ride immersed in angry and decadent atmospheres, as with the following "Caress Into Oblivion(Jade Serpent II)", even slower and more atmospheric with the usual wall of guitars and at times tribal rhythms and Tom's voice that returns whiny and suffering. A hammering and synthetic rhythmic carpet supports "One In Their Pride" scourged by a sick bass line by Ain, robotic voices, and a screeching violin, a piece of experimental and futuristic electronic music that again baffles the listener and annihilates any logical thread.
The compelling "I Won't Dance(The Elder's Orient)" enchants with its metallic pace and a breathtaking chorus sung in a duet by Warrior and Mokri with a powerful and precise performance by Reed St. Mark on the drums, "Sorrows Of The Moon" is the metal version of "Tristesses De La Lune", powerful and with cadenced rhythms and acoustic guitar strokes to enchant the atmosphere. The next track is the culmination of the experimental nature of the work, "Rex Irae(Requiem)", the perfect marriage between metal and classical music, a majestic and resounding wall of sound from an orchestra, the desolate grace of the soprano Mokri's voice, and Warrior's tormented vocals plus the feral electric guitar create an epic and decadent masterpiece, crossed by powerful double bass drums and metallized escapes halfway through the track, but the classical orchestra once again overrides everything in the finale, leading into the brief and evocative instrumental "Oriental Masquerade".
An understood work and one of the most fascinating and courageous ever composed, musical atmospheres totally distant from each other here marry properly and naturally, no album has ever lived up to its name as this "Into The Pandemonium", into the pandemonium!
UH!...
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Mexican Radio (03:29)
Mexican Radio
written by Wall of Voodoo, from their album Call of the West
I feel a hot wind on my shoulder
And the touch of a world that is older
I turn the switch and check the number
I leave it on when in bed I slumber
I hear the rhythms of the music
I buy the product but never use it
I hear the talking of the DJ
Can't understand - just what does he say?
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
(Radio DJ speaking in Spanish)
I dial it in and tune the station
They talk about the U.S. inflation
I understand just a little
No comprende - it's a riddle
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
(Radio DJ speaking in Spanish)
I wish I was in Tijuana -
Eating barbecued iguana
I'd take requests on the telephone
I'm on a wavelength far from home
I feel the hot wind on my shoulder
I dial it in from south of the border
I hear the talking of the DJ -
Can't understand - just what does he say?
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
Radio, Radio
Radio, Radio
Radio, Radio
Radio, Radio
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio
I'm on the Mexican radio
I'm on the Mexican (whoa ho) radio ...
Radio
Radio
What does he say?
Radio
Radio
Radio
02 Mesmerized (03:24)
You, who like the moon at night
Haunted my mortal heart ...
You who made this ancient walls
Shine like divine marble
The unwanted breath - through creedence
A derelict shell in the desert
- Mesmerised -
As love inflamed the night
Burning tongues brought the rain
The sand remained - purified
Murmur at the meager's spear
Battered Carthagian pride
The beloved cry - wasted dismay
Invasion of baseness and shade
You, loved by your father
Innocent as a vestal - dove
Buried in a deep blue sea
As we all lose - ever
03 Inner Sanctum (05:16)
Sleep brings no joy to me
Remembrance never dies
My soul is given to misery
And lives in sighs ...
The shadows of the dead,
My waken eyes may never see,
Surround my bed
That from which they sprung - eternity
Beneath the turf
The silent dead
Sleep brings no wish to knit
My harrassed heart beneath
My only wish is to forget
In the sleep of death
Death is my joy
I long to be at rest
I wish the damp earth covered
This desolate brest
Beneath the mould
The silent dead
But the glad eyes around us
Must weep as we have done
And we must see the same gloom
Eclipse their morning sun
Oh not for them - Should we despair
The grave is drear - But they're not there
Their dust is mingled - With the sod
Their pale souls - Are gone, to god
Well, may they live in ecstasy
Their long eternity of joy
At least I wouldn't bring them down
With me to weep, to groan
And what's the future
A sea beneath the cloudless sun
A mighty, glorious, dazzling sea
Stretching into infinity
My inner sanctum
R.I.P
04 Sorrows of the Moon (03:04)
This evening the moon dreams more lazily
As some fair woman, lost in cushions deep
With gentle hand caresses listlessly
The contour of her breasts before she sleeps
On velvet backs of avalanches soft
She often lies enraptured as she dies
And gazes on white visions aloft
Which like a blossoming to heaven rise
When sometimes on this globe, in indolence
She lets a secret tear drop down, by chance
A poet, set against oblivion
Takes in his hand this pale and furtive tear
This opal drop where rainbow hues appear
And hides it in his breast far from the sun
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Other reviews
By Big D
Imagining the sound of this album for someone who has never listened to it is like trying to explain the difference between red and blue to someone who has been blind from birth.
'Into The Pandemonium' stands to music as Warhol’s madness stands to art.
By ElectricOne
"Into The Pandemonium represents the compositional zenith of the band led by T.G. 'Warrior' Fischer and Martin Eric Ain."
"A truly historic and seminal album, absolutely anomalous for the global metal landscape of the time and still original and innovative."
