Ok , so I finally checked out Celtic Frost´s "Into The Pandemonium" ... pretty much a deception to me compared to their previous material ( the first 2 EPs and To Megatherion ) ... I´ve been only recently checking Celtic Frost stuff because my "previous" religion (evangelical) didn´t me allow to do such , Now I´ll skip "Cold Lake" for obvious reasons and I want to get into "Vanity Nemesis" that is , for what I perceive , a great but underrated album ... so what are your opinions on these 2 albums (Into The Pandemonium and Vanity / Nemesis ?)

imo these albums just exemplify everything tom fucked up with CF. the first album is great because he didn't fuck around with the formula. into the pandemonium is tom trying to make high art, and there's a chunk of solid stuff on it, but the avant-garde bullshit just makes me groan. it's so far up its own arse it hurts. vanity/nemesis is underrated in that people forget it exists, but it's still at least half filler. the first two songs are far and away the best, and tom's vocals are awful. such a terribly inconsistent band...

Its too unfocused. They tried to go for that gothic pop sound that bands like Sisters of Mercy or the Cure were doing, and merge it with the heavy dark sound that Celtic Frost were going for. But it fails, because most of the lighter stuff just sounds like a bad attempt at gothic pop, and the heavier stuff falls short due to lack of effective catchy riffs. Plus "One in their Pride" is just out of place and weird, unlike their other dark ambient tracks on the previous albums, because it's too poppy, more like early ("Halloween" era) Ministry or like 80's pop group The Art of Noise.

I'm not as familiar with "Vanity Nemesis" but what I have heard of it didn't impress me that much either. It is more like the early stuff than "Into the Pandemonium" was, but its just too lacking in feeling or effective songs.

I tried to listen to Vanity Nemesis earlier this year and found it fucking awful. Like I could barely even listen to it - decent riffs with really, really annoying vocals. I dunno, maybe it'd grow on me a little with time but my first impression was very negative.

Vanity/Nemesis is hardly a huge departure from Cold Lake in terms of both quality and sound. I can only chalk up the good reputation it seems to uphold to its abandonment of the latter's woeful aesthetics.

Celtic Frost is part of the unholy trinity (Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost). Into The Pandemonium is an exceptional album. It combines the darkness of Morbid Tales and avant garde genius. Vanity Nemesis combines everything Celtic Frost did up to that point. You cannot cage up Tom's imagination. He is a true visionary and genius and continues it on with Triptykon. We I play these two albums my wife always says "ïs this the guy with the sleazy voice?"

I don't know what people are saying about ItP having a lack of effective riffs; it's the riffs which make me come back to it. I also enjoy their juxtaposition with the female vocals and Egyptianesque sounds where relevant (and which would greatly influence Therion's symphonic evolution). Those parts are more "poppy" sounding I suppose than To Mega Therion, but as far as I'm concerned the riffs and other more conventional songs more than make up for that possibility.
I'm not so keen on his strange clean crooning though, but I don't really think another kind of voice would fit in most of those parts. At least it's still kept miserable and "dark" sounding here. I can perfectly understand people not liking that and the two non-metal tracks on here, though. I feel they fit in with the album's "dark, big and mysterious" aesthetic, but certainly One in their Pride is inherently out of place.
I must also add that I really In the Chapel, In the Moonlight and the alternative version of The Inevitable Factor on the reissue.

Vanity/Nemesis I don't remember disliking, but I also never find myself fascinated and drawn to it like I have been with their early stuff, and can't actually recall anything from it.

Morbid Tales/Emperor's Return, To Mega Therion and Monotheist are pretty much the only good CF albums. Everything else is a mess with a couple of good EPs hidden amidst a bunch of self-absorbed nonsense.

Can't get enough of Into the Pandemonium. It's propably not as good as either Morbid Tales or To Mega Therion, but that doesn't make it a bad album. Inner Sanctum and Sorrows of the Moon are monsters. I Won't Dance, Babylon Fell, all good stuff. The only sucky song on that album is the awful techno track.

Into the Pandemonium is the Grand Declaration of War of its time - polarising but enough great material to justify re-examining its reputation. Having said that, not even Mayhem had the balls to cover both Wall of Voodoo and Dean Martin on the same album

I'm actually really fond of Into the Pandemonium. Not all of the experimentation really 'works', but it's interesting and I find it really enjoyable.

Vanity/Nemesis is yeah, some solid songs and good riffs, not at all terrible, but yeesh those vocals.

Outside of these awesome releases you mentioned, it can be a bit of a task to mine the band's bizarre discography for worthwhile material. I don't like Into the Pandemonium but it isn't terrible either, just a case of the concept having had more time spent on it than the riffs if you ask me.

I do like the record quite a bit but i feel it doesnt quite sound right which holds a couple of songs on a bit back i think.
Oh and i dont really like vanity/nemesis at all. Prob the only actual thrashy album celtic frost ever did and its also kinda boring.

Get the Parched With Thirst... sampler CD. If you like the Vanity/Nemesis songs on this CD, then go for this one too. I like the CD as it has some great songs with killer riffs, but the vocals are a love-it/hate-it/ignore-it thing...

The album is structurally weird, with that Wall of Voodoo cover being both a weird place to begin the journey and oddly the most reminiscent of old Celtic Frost at the same time. On the other hand, "Mesmerized" and "Sorrows of the Moon" are fantastic and two of my favourite Celtic Frost songs. I'll seldom listen to the whole album because it is rather an awkward affair, with a not entirely pleasing sound and lots of elements that don't work too well (the female vocals, the drum machine track (I'm not going to honour it by calling it a "techno track") that doesn't sound like any effort was put into it whatsoever...
But yeah, it certainly has its moments. The weepy Christian Death-type vocals he employs on those two songs I mentioned earlier as standouts are a bit funny sounding at first but, well, they really grew on me somehow. I love that chiming clean guitar added to the verses of "Mesmerized"....gives the song such a weird, unique feeling.

I'd skip Cold Lake altogether then if I were you...provided you haven't heard it already.

I bought Into the Pandemonium when it came out. Seeing as I was really onto CF, I found it a bit different from their previous material (an understatement), but I had already read the reviews, so I knew what I was getting into. I like the album, but I think it's like loads of ideas all collected together in one place. They don't exactly flow in a linear fashion, but, all the same, the album works. Sadly, this was the last good album CF did before Monotheist.

I also like Apollyon Sun, though, which was Tom's more experimental outfit. Bit of a Marmite experience, that.

Besides One In Their Pride which is utterly pointless drum-machine experimentation for the sake of it, and I Won’t Dance (a sign of things to come per chance???), I love it.
Inner Sanctum and Sorrows Of The Moon are probably my two favourite CF tracks of all time. Caress into Oblivion and Mexican Radio kick substantial amounts of ass too.
Having said that, it IS a very disjointed album and i understand why some would dislike/hate it.

I really like Vanity Nemesis too. Very straight-forward borderline thrash album it is, but sounds great to me. The only beef I have isn’t with Tom’s vocals, it’s the stupid cover of Heroes. It’s not even really a cover. It’s a brand new song musically with Bowie’s lyrics, am I’m all for an artist’s putting their own touches to a cover, but this?
Not familiar with the original Island In The Stream, so don’t know if the same applies here or not.

I couldn't make it through that one either, and it came off more as a joke than anything - I've heard so much shit about it over the years I wasn't surprised. Vanity/Nemesis was worse to me just because I didn't expect it to sound like shit.

I've got to be the only person here who thinks "One In Their Pride" is a brilliant track.

As for Pandemonium as a while, it was never the execution of the genre blending, or the clean singing, or the misplaced identity that turned me off of the album that much. If anything, that gave it its life. I just don't think the riffs were up to par and it didn't have the intensity of earlier releases. Still not a terrible album though. Vanity/Nemesis is actually an okay album if you're looking for an easy listen, but needless to say it suffers from some of the same faults. Either way, I think the presence of both albums is important for them because it helped to establish them as mold breakers.

I am surprised so many dislike the riffs in particular on Into the Pandemonium. I think its one of the records stronger aspects. I bought the album in my mid-teens after having heard Circle of the Tyrants. Naturally I loved the tracks that were in the same vein on this album. But I do remember not really understanding the appeal of most of the tracks when Tom tries his clean vocals. Perhaps all the experimentation also left me a little confused as a youngster.

However the album did grown on me and I enjoy it quite a lot nowadays. Now I love the contrast between the whiny vocals and the harsh ones included in the same track as is the case in Mesmerized. Or the choice to use the same lyrics in different languages (Tristess de la Lune/Sorrows of the Moon). Or the duelling male/female vocals of Rex Irae. I think One in Their Pride is tollerable. However my version of the album includes two mixes of the track. The short one, the porthole mix, is alright. The long one, extended mix, wears out its welcome both in being to long and also because we already heard the song once before on the same album.

But it is a weird album. They have the Celtic Frost bread and butter type songs (Inner Sanctum and Babylon Fell) in there with a whiny vocals song in Mesmerized, an all female non-metal track in Tristess de la Lune, a track about not dancing in I Won't Dance, a cover of Mexican Radio, a weird drum machine/sample track in One in Their Pride and several tries throughout to include a more epic and symphonic feeling in Rex Irae and Oriental Masquerade.

I gave Pandemonium another listen last night because of this thread. It's certainly a strange album, but I still consider it a pretty essential part of their discography. I remember the vocals threw me off a bit back when I first heard the record but I never hated it because of that. This is the first time I've heard 'One In Their Pride' described as "techno." It always had sort of a hip-hop beat in my opinion. Tom G. wearing a NASA shirt on the back cover is pretty funny though. Love the cover of 'Mexican Radio,' and I think it's great that they opened the album with it too.

Cold Lake is so hated that it's probably turned around and become somewhat underrated now. Vanity/Nemesis was the apology album. Even though the thrashier material was back, I feel the darkness and atmosphere were missing, and mostly the album just seems quite boring for the most part. Maybe not essential but it's still worth checking out if you're a CF fan.

Into the Pandemonium is frustrating because it could have been as good as To Mega Therion with just a few tweaks. Maybe even better. The spirit of experimentation on this album is great but it needed to be reigned in. Some of the ideas are great, others, not so much. Early Celtic Frost was raw and had an appropriate production. This was more ambitious and needed better sound.

A good producer for this album would have been a great start. One In Their Pride wouldn't fly as is with a good producer. It needed more work, to be edited and to sound better to find a spot on this album. The running order of Into the Pandemonium is lacklustre too. This album doesn't flow very well, IMO. Speaking of running order:



I'm of the opposite opinion. The song is pure shit and the fact it opens the album is disastrous. I remember how metal heads around me struggled giving this album a chance because it starts with this lame cover and the rest is disjointed.

Vanity/Nemesis is largely forgotten for good reason; it's fucking crap and an incredibly weak "Please take us back!" album. However, the lead guitarist, Ron Marks, does some good work; it would have been interesting to see what he could have done with a decent Frost album.

Into the Pandemonium, on the other hand, is something I rather enjoy. Sure, it doesn't all work, but that's part of the fun; the uptempo Frost numbers are still really fun and it's got a sense of fun to it that makes it even more fun. Goofy, silly, pretentious... yes, but still a good listen. I'd much rather that than the dull-as-dishwater Monotheist. Give me some fucking riffs, you bald bastard!

You've just spoken the unspeakable.

WHAT'S UNDER THE BEANIE, TOM!?

...is what Acrobat yells out as he follows Triptykon around Europe.

I just put on my Into The Pandemonium CD now, I always cringe at the thought of the first song on this album, it's truly awful and should have been the last song or an EP or something.
It bothers me that he goes with an OOH! and a HEEEYY straight out of the gate on track one too
Fortunately the rest of this album is mostly pretty good I reckon, this has some really catchy stuff on it apart from a couple of stinkers... a few recycled riffs notwithstanding

This goes in the essential because it's pretty good and it's Celtic Frost category not the essential because it's Celtic Frost category

A comment on the artwork, which I really like, it's pretty uninspired and doesn't really 'suit' what's on offer here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights

No mention of the artwork on our MA page
http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Celtic_Frost/Into_the_Pandemonium