We're Still Here

Review: Gothic cathedrals of resonant noise rolling with a gracefully organic rhythm which in its accompaniment of laconic chord phrasing transforms this energy into a continuity of darkness working against its own grinding negativity and eventual decay into chaos, Celtic Frost brought their internal formula of doom-laden cavernous drone music to its most evolved state while remaining focused as concept and aesthetic of metal. Epic in scope and ambition of ideal, this album uses occasional symphonic accentuation and clean vocals to achieve an atmosphere which merges image and ideal expressed in music.

Protagonist Tom Warrior writes in his book about the band that the importance of projecting image coherent with music was where Celtic Frost differed from other bands of the time, and that vision is present here in distinctive songs which more than operating by hook work by visual architectures having significance in rumbling epics of fundamental conflict. Vocals chant a cadenced encouragement to roaring sound and drums shadow development through guitar phrasing as bass fills points of tonal variation, forming together a lower registers resonance which through its thrashing of undulating riffs projects a hazy dreamlike vision into the subconscious metaphorology of majestically raw and human motions in music.

Amazing for its ability to turn a sequence of one and two-note riffs into a progression of idea evolving into the next turn of structure, cycling across portions of the narrative journey through fundamental themes in riff and rhythm, this metal uses recursive structures to emphasize arduously nihilistic structures of the same feral approach to harmony seen in Hellhammer, refined to a greater degree of articulation in riff texture. Each song captures in its own space a grandeur which will forever be associated with this band, that of a panoramic view of vast realms of decay and hopelessness, including the lone warrior as he wanders investigating a world beyond his control.

Influential on most black and death metal to follow, Celtic Frost established a template for song construction and development which allowed narrative aspects of structure on both strategic (song composition) and tactical (riff shape) levels and in doing so, brought their consciousness of aesthetic gestured in music into the bloodline of the evolving black metal genre.