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Rating: The Celtic Frost are one of the most well-known bands coming from Switzerland and one of those groups with an undefined genre and a very diverse discography.
From the initial speed-thrash of the beautiful "Morbid Tales" (and the subsequent EP "Emperor's Return"), the band then focused on the more experimental and complex aspect of their sound, expressing themselves through various labels: doom, death, black, avant-garde and even daring the glam experiment ("Cold Lake"), which rightly caused a decline in popularity and sales. They tried again in 1990 with "Vanity/Nemesis" to return to the old proto-thrash paths, but soon after, the band would dissolve, only to reunite in 2001 and release this "Monotheist" in 2006, an album of dubious value.
Because if the first two songs "Progeny" and "Ground" are not actually bad, especially the opener which expresses a certain unhealthy and evil fury, then the album, track by track, descends into a doom mush with almost gothic traits that is decidedly unconvincing, indeed quite boring.
"A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh" is always on the brink between a flat calm and nonetheless restrained malice, with the handbrake fully engaged even on the following and quite disappointing "Drown In Ashes," in which echoes of a female voice can also be heard, and the quieter, gothic soul decidedly takes the reins of the band.
Some riffs of "Os Abysmi Vel Daath" seem to lift the situation a bit if it weren't for the excessively repetitive and predictable course of the entire piece, the exact same discussion applies to the subsequent "Obscured," which drags on weak and trivial for all its seven minutes.
A bit of grit returns with "My Domain Of Decay" and "Ain Elohim" (the latter truly a little gem of violence that dabbles in thrash/black territory with fitting riffs and rhythms), which definitely stand out from the general flatness that unfortunately also envelops the remaining tracks of this album (especially the deadly, in a negative sense, "Sinagoga Sataneae," fourteen monstrously uninspired minutes).
"Warrior" Fischer and associates took 4 years (from 2002 to 2006) to think about, write, and compose the comeback album, maybe they did too little, or maybe (very likely) it's the usual matter of "de gustibus", it evidently interested them more to focus on that less straightforward and more complex and dark part of their career, so experimentation is welcome but let it be experimentation done with guts though! And "Monotheist" (I sadly reiterate) only rarely shows those qualities.
"Monotheist" therefore is one of the (not few) missteps of Celtic Frost and can only earn a mediocre rating, I hopeful await the album expected for 2008/2009 in search of a positive change and a return to the early, more direct and assaultive sounds that had made Celtic Frost a band with all the capabilities to compete with other sacred monsters in the field (like Venom).
Rating: 5/10
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Progeny (05:01)
I am you.
Stillborn.
Into this state of being numb.
I am the temple and the sacrifice.
The shrine, entombed within lies all I am.
And you, the womb from whence I came.
I am you.
If I am you, no life is sacred in my hands.
If I am you, no love will prosper in this world.
If I am you, I am the faith to end all faith.
If I am you, you shall not live to save yourselves.
I bring no God, no afterworld.
I am no more than a lie.
I love your life not for you.
I am a throne made from dust.
02 Ground (03:55)
I am hatred, seeping blood.
The rain, the flood, the grief.
I am rage becoming flesh.
A dismal, ravaged life.
This is pain, a wall of tears.
And my tears are my truest friends.
This, my heart, a dying sun.
A flower fading to black.
Oh God, why have you forsaken me?
In this darkness, called my mind.
The waste you left for me.
I'm your shit, your verbal smut.
Your twisted world recapped.
This is you, your lifeless soul.
Your sick and fucked-up lies.
In my world your love is death.
Your disease, your skin that burns.
Oh God, why have you forsaken me?
You tied my limbs and buried me alive.
And piled this frozen mud.
You watched me die with lustrous eyes.
As all your words grew stale.
You mocked my care and stained my mind.
You yearned for me to fail.
03 A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh (05:39)
All is cold and frozen.
Frozen the sea, frozen the sky.
Frozen is death, but I cannot die.
Cannot die.
As the snow falls.
To cover this all.
And all is cold.
And cold is all.
All is cold and cold is all.
Cold.
Frozen.
Frozen is heaven and frozen is hell.
And I am dying in this living human shell.
I am a dying God, coming into human flesh.
I am a dying God.
Frozen my heart.
Frozen my soul.
Frozen my love.
I am a dying God, coming into human flesh.
04 Drown in Ashes (04:23)
I drown in ashes you've enshrined.
Of blissful days long gone by.
Concealed behind my dying eyes.
This hell of anger and weary lies.
A frame of mind, a dismal soul.
My final womb, this flesh turned cold.
You held me down and let me bleed.
My love, it died, along with me.
A world of scars and caresses pale.
And thoughts as chaste as pristine dew.
And flowers placed across your face.
I trace the life I've lost with you.
This bleakest pit that you've unveiled.
I hate to love as it is pain.
My hands are cut but still I sail.
An ocean of sadness in the rain.
My flesh, my blood.
My wound, my cry.
My broken back, my all now dies.
My soul, my tomb.
My pain, my joy.
My darkest mind, my love destroyed.
05 Os Abysmi vel Daath (06:40)
A pallid sun sheds dimmest glow.
On mute and pallid soil.
I am the one, a life long gone.
A refuge raped in search of life.
Like a shadow on this earth.
In embraces pale as human flesh.
I am unborn, and I'm undone.
How much of me is lost.
I deny my own desire.
Lying one among the liars.
I deny my own desire.
Dark in darkness I can see.
Nothingness is blinding me.
Os abysmi.
I'm drowning in this sea.
For those I loved I hurt.
So you taketh from me.
My name untold and numb.
Where I am there is no thing.
No God, no me, no inbetween.
07 Obscured (07:04)
Somewhere inside.
It's still obscured.
Darkness reflects.
Stronger than fear.
I seize control to inhale this final day.
I shut my mind but I'm falling anyway.
No..No..No..No..
And I think that I'm all alone.
I can feel the rain pull me down again.
No..No..No..No..
And I know that I have no home.
I can feel the pain take a hold again.
Tied to the ground.
In mounting shade.
My soul is bound.
And so it fades.
I seize control to inhale this final day.
I shut my mind but I'm falling anyway.
No..No..No..No..
And I think that I'm all alone.
I can feel the rain pull me down again.
No..No..No..No..
And I know that I have no home.
I can feel the pain take a hold again.
And I know that I won't escape.
My remaining faith is draped.
Like my hurt and my fleeting grace.
In this numbing empty space.
08 Domain of Decay (04:38)
Within these darkest walls.
As I write these lines.
In this domain of decay.
Words fall on the soil beneath.
Enfold, embrace, besiege, swathe.
My domain.
Within these darkest walls.
How can I be human?
They say they are blind.
Smearing ashes across glass.
In this forest of harbored thoughts.
There's demons in my mind.
And I entrust myself to the lure.
Of leaving this existence behind.
09 Ain Elohim (07:33)
Lay thy hand on the neck of thine enemies.
Devour their flesh with thy sword.
Bring down the slain from among thine adversaries.
They shall fall to rise no more.
Tetragrammaton.
Thy wrath inflame my passion.
Tetragrammaton.
Against all sinful flesh.
Let thy wrath consume all of thine enemies.
Scourge them with flames of fire.
Lay thy feet on the pile of those slain by thy mysteries.
We shall be cleansed by their blood.
Thus said the Lord: I am Sabaoth.
Feel my holy wrath.
I am glorified.
I cannot be denied.
I am he who is.
Punishment for wickedness.
I am the one you dread.
You are as good as dead.
There is no God but the one that dies with me.
I have no life but the one I take with me to the grave.
We come into this world alone.
And we will die on our own.
I live.
I die.
Ain Elohim.
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Other reviews
By sfascia carrozze
A work which, in all sincerity, goes far beyond any rosier sensible-prevision.
Innovative. Avant garde. Brave. Brutal. Bizarre. Electrifying. Unique.
By Defender85
"Monotheist is an album not easy to assimilate, centered on themes of death, frustrated human desires, and decomposition."
"Celtic Frost is a group that has made experimentation its hallmark, offering us absolute masterpieces in the past and now this 'Monotheist'."
