Into the Pandemonium
Studio album by
Celtic Frost
Released1 June 1987
RecordedJanuary–April 1987
StudioHorus Sound Studio, Hannover, Germany
Genre
Length39:11
LabelNoise (Europe)
Combat/Noise (US)
ProducerCeltic Frost
Celtic Frost chronology
Tragic Serenades
(1986) 		Into the Pandemonium
(1987) 		Cold Lake
(1988)
Singles from Into the Pandemonium
  1. "I Won't Dance"
    Released: 1987
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal7/10[5]

Into the Pandemonium is the third studio album by Swiss extreme metal band Celtic Frost, released in 1987. The album marks the return of bassist and backing vocalist Martin Eric Ain, who appeared on 1984's Morbid Tales, but not the band's previous album.

The album is more varied than Celtic Frost's past LPs, with unlikely covers (Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio"), emotionally charged love songs, the album's recurring industrial-influenced rhythmic songs of demons and destruction, traditional Frost-styled songs about dreams and fear, and a dark, classical piece with female vocals.

Content

The album is vastly different from the band's previous work which cemented its late 1980s avant-garde metal term; it is also a departure from the style found on the band's previous albums, Morbid Tales and To Mega Therion that Celtic Frost had become known for. However, it does have the recurring symphonic elements found on previous albums. The album has a more classic heavy metal style within the songs with elements of industrial, classical, gothic rock and doom metal.

One in Their Pride, an industrial-oriented track, is built around various Apollo samples.[6]

Some of the lyrics are silently borrowed from other sources. For example, significant portions of Inner Sanctum are directly quoted from Emily Brontë poems,[7] while the lyrics to "Tristesses de la lune" are borrowed from the poem of the same name in Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. The lyrics to "Sorrows of the Moon" are an English translation of the same.

The track "Rex Irae" is the opening part of Celtic Frost's requiem; the third, concluding part of which, "Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three: Finale)" can be heard on 2006's Monotheist. The second part of the requiem was never released by the band. Thomas Gabriel Fischer has performed the whole piece, with the long missing second part ("Grave Eternal"), at Roadburn 2019 with Triptykon along with the Metropole Orkest. A registration of this performance has been released.

Album art

The cover image is a detail from the right (Hell) panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych painted in 1504 by Hieronymus Bosch, now part of the permanent collection at the Prado in Madrid.

Track listings

Original LP

Side One
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Mexican Radio" (Wall of Voodoo cover)Marc Moreland, Stan Ridgway3:28
2."Mesmerized"Martin Eric Ain, Thomas Gabriel Warrior3:24
3."Inner Sanctum"Warrior, Ain5:14
4."Sorrows of the Moon"Ain3:04
5."Babylon Fell"Warrior4:18
Side Two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
6."Caress into Oblivion"Warrior5:10
7."One in Their Pride"Warrior2:50
8."I Won't Dance"Warrior4:31
9."Rex Irae (Requiem)"Warrior5:57
10."Oriental Masquerade"Warrior1:15

Original CD

No.TitleLength
1."Mexican Radio"3:28
2."Mesmerized"3:24
3."Inner Sanctum"5:14
4."Tristesses de la Lune"2:58
5."Babylon Fell (Jade Serpent)"4:18
6."Caress into Oblivion (Jade Serpent II)"5:10
7."One in Their Pride" (Porthole Mix)2:50
8."I Won't Dance (The Elders' Orient)"4:31
9."Sorrows of the Moon"3:04
10."Rex Irae (Requiem)"5:57
11."Oriental Masquerade"1:15
12."One in Their Pride" (Re-entry Mix)5:52

1999 remastered CD edition bonus tracks

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
13."In the Chapel, in the Moonlight"Billy Hill2:04
14."The Inevitable Factor"Warrior, Ain, Reed St. Mark4:38
15."The Inevitable Factor" (Alternate Vox)Warrior, Ain, St. Mark4:38

Personnel

Celtic Frost
Additional musicians (CD editions)
Production

Reaction and legacy

Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic called Into the Pandemonium "one of the classic extreme metal albums of all time."[1]

In 2021, it was elected by Metal Hammer as the 2nd best symphonic metal album of all time.[2]

"Inner Sanctum" was featured in the 2009 video game Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned.

References

  1. ^ a b c Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Celtic Frost: Artist Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 1 November 2014. On To Mega Therion, Warrior had begun experimenting with different musical styles (especially classical music and electronica), leading certain journalists to describe the band's direction as 'avant-garde' metal. Released in 1987, Into the Pandemonium would substantiate these claims and then some, introducing an unconventional collision of death metal brutality and symphonic overtones on its way to becoming one of the classic extreme metal albums of all time.
  2. ^ a b c d Davies, Hywel; Dome, Malcolm; Goodman, Eleanor; Chantler, Chris; Gordon, Connie; Grady, Spencer; Rees, Adam; Selzer, Jonathan (17 November 2021). "The 25 best symphonic metal albums". Metal Hammer. Future plc. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  3. ^ Chantler, Chris (28 April 2020). "10 essential goth metal albums". Louder Sound. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  4. ^ Raggett, Ned. "Celtic Frost Into the Pandemonium review". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  5. ^ Popoff, Martin (1 November 2005). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2: The Eighties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. p. 68. ISBN 978-1894959315.
  6. ^ "Tracks Sampled in One in Their Pride by Celtic Frost". WhoSampled. Retrieved 1 May 2022.
  7. ^ Hatfield, C. W. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, page 54. Columbia University Press, 1941.
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