Review of the Album Cold Lake by Swiss Heavy Metal Band Celtic Frost

Celtic Frost was a heavy metal band from Switzerland that was active between the years 1984 through 2008 but the band was put to rest on three separate occasions. Cold Lake is the very first album that I have heard from these guys so this is going to be a sort of biased album review. The musical style is like hard rock with some Mercyful Fate and early Metallica and Judas Priest influences but there is no thrash metal influence or sound in this album.

Your question might be why should there be a review for this album if I have not heard any other Celtic Frost album besides this one? For the avid heavy metal fan, exploration of different styles and bands from the different countries around the world will help to diversify your musical tastes which makes you a more open-minded person.

In an interview conducted with the website Metal Sucks, lead vocalist and guitarist Tom Gabriel Fischer (also known as Tom Warrior) gave his perspective and thoughts on Cold Lake and his description of it was not pretty at all! Author D.X. Ferris who is a big fan of the album asked Tom how the album came about. We will get to that part in a little while but for now, here is some additional perspective but I don’t have extensive listening knowledge of Celtic Frost even though I have known about them since the early 2000’s.

The first track or song called Human is a short track that has rap style dialogue in it with some bass guitar play so you might want to skip over this track and that’s certainly not how you want to start off an album. The vocals sound kind of drowned out and the song Seduce Me Tonight tries to sound like a Stone Temple Pilots style song. Does anyone remember the song Unglued? This is not supposed to be similar to STP but that’s how that songs sounds. However, Cold Lake is not some horror show where everything about the album is bad. It is not as bad as some other heavy metal albums such as Risk or The Great Southern Trendkill.

By the 4^th song called (Once) They Were Eagles, I can see and understand Tom Warrior’s criticisms. It is the vocals in this album that really lower the quality of the album. Warrior himself said during that interview: “this is such an absolutely complex process that led to an album so terrible. It’s absolutely impossible to explain,” (Ferris, 2010). When Ferris asked him if he was not happy with the album, Tom gave a very detailed and interesting response. He was extremely happy with the album in the sense that he felt that he had done the absolute worst that he could do so no matter how low he were to sink, he felt that he could not go any lower than that.

Cherry Orchards has a starting riff that kind of reminds me a tiny bit of the song called Seek and Destroy but obviously this song is nowhere near as good as that one. The chorus is kind of weird with the whole idea of writing lines such as “Ginger looks upon pain.” How can someone be in pain while looking at a cherry orchard? This is one of the strangest things in music that I have seen. The song itself is not bad but that chorus is just so weird. Even though Celtic Frost was described as an extreme metal band, this is not what extreme metal sounds like.

Cold Lake was described as an album that was a sell-out by its fan base but is it the worst album in the history of heavy music? Far from it and I say this having listened to heavy metal for over 25 years. You could do much worse than this album. Downtown Hanoi has the sounds of a helicopter in the background. Did the band try to make it obvious that there were helicopters used during the Vietnam War? Also, how can anyone drown in purple wine? These are some really weird lyrics! Even though the lyrics in the songs are cheesy, calling Cold Lake an absolute piece of garbage is an extreme statement. It is not that bad but it depends what the listener is looking for. Cold Lake is a decent album but it is not glam rock and also it is not as bad as it is made out to be. The solos are decent and there is at least a structure to the songs. Seduce Me Tonight has sort of cheesy lyrics but even though I have been critical of the riffing in that song, it is still decent. What are the strongest songs in Cold Lake? I would say they are Seduce Me Tonight, Cherry Orchards, and maybe Juices Like Wine.

Final Rating for Cold Lake: 70 out of 100 points for a C grade

Ferris, D. (2010, March 18). TALKIN’ TRIPTYKON WITH TOM G. (WARRIOR) FISCHER. Retrieved from Metal Sucks: http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/03/18/talkin-triptykon-with-tom-g-warrior-fischer/