Celtic Frost Cold Lake

Celtic Frost 'Cold Lake' (Noise, 1988)

When I was a kid, one of the barometers that I used to determine whether or not I would like a band was the amount of Ks Xavier Russell (son of Ken Russell no less!) gave a band in his Kerrang! reviews. Xavier loved the band he christened 'Da Frosties' and would regularly bestow them with the maximum five Ks. Notoriously he awarded this album either one K or no Ks (although he directs the video to 'Cherry Orchards' I just noticed!). It certainly got 0% in a Metal Forces review.

I saw Celtic Frost, on the tour to support this LP, at the Playhouse in February 1989 and I think we were in the second back row which was row M. Celtic Frost were booed relentlessly by the miniscule crowd of 200 and constantly pelted with flying plastic cups. Tom G. Warrior views that performance as one of the low points in his career, so much so that he reprints a ticket from the gig in his book, 'Are you Morbid?', with a caption which says 'One of our worst shows ever' or words to that effect.

So is 'Cold Lake' really that bad? Not really, no. Yes, the image the band adopted was ridiculous and the song titles like 'Seduce me Tonight', 'Petty Obsession' and 'Dance Sleazy' are somewhat bizarre given the over the top grandeur which preceded this LP, but this is still quite clearly a Celtic Frost album.

Opener, 'Human', sounds like a Neptunes produced reply to the lauded Avant Garde electronics of 'One in their Pride' from 'Into the Pandemonium'. '.....Pandemonium' is regularly referred to as Da Frosties' masterwork, yet it contained many songs unpalatable to your average Frost fan and the band also adopted an image which in some ways was stranger than that on 'Cold Lake'. The difference on 'Cold Lake' is that the boundary blurring has gone too far and Warrior and company opted to whole heartedly embrace the burgeoning glam scene.

However, they don't quite manage it. They are just too weird and ugly to really get that Motley Crue/L. A. Guns (Warrior wore their T shirt constantly during the promotion for 'Cold Lake') vibe going. Warrior cannot sing for a start and his vocals are still firmly camped in thrash/death (just listen to 'Juices like Wine') with his trade mark death grunts and 'Heys!'punctuating glammed up Frost riffs throughout the album.

If this LP was given a less bright production, particularly on the blaring out of context solos, and slowed down by 10 bpm then this could potentially be a Frost classic. Even though it is quite clearly not a classic and in many ways deserves the derision it received at the time and continues to receive to this day, I actually enjoy it. Warrior has categorically disowned the album refusing to remaster it, but he refused to acknowledge Hellhammer for nearly two decades and look at what has happened there.

I certainly enjoy it more than the tedious, droning dirge of 'Monotheist'. I prefer the sound of people misguidedly trying to have fun than beanie wearing middle aged men acting like self-harming teenage goths.

Even Lu commented 'This sounds nothing like Celtic Frost' and after all wasn't that always Warrior's goal?

Peace