CELTIC FROST Explain Album Delay

CELTIC FROST men Tom Gabriel Fischer (guitar, vocals) and Martin Eric Ain (bass) recently talked to U.K.'s Terrorizer magazine about the reasons for the long delay in the recording of their first new album in 15 years, "Monotheist".

Tom: "Everything you can think of happened. I cannot describe it any other way. From technical problems to personal problems to song writing developement — anything you can imagine. With hindsight I'm glad we let it mature because now it's exactly where we imagined it would be when we first talked about this. Any time before would have been nice for that f ans — I've read all the complaints on the CELTIC FROST board."

Martin: "You should keep in mind in that regard that this wasn't about a band writing an album, it was about forming a band and writing an album. We had to get ourselves back together again and redefine our relationship. We had loose contact over the years, and I'd been out of the gamefor years and had to get myself into CELTIC FROST mode. We also had to find a drummer. So it was forming a band and then writing the material."

Tom: "We recorded tons of demos that nobody will ever hear. Some are finished and mixed, some are just basics. That was very important for the gestation of this album. Also, we were under no boligation to release an album by a certain date. This wasn't a band coming back together because management and record company offered a lot of money. we did it because we wanted to. We had total independence. We did the album on our own time and since we had already waited 15 years, what difference would a month or 10 months make? We wanted to make the album the way it needed to be."

CELTIC FROST's first album in 13 years, "Monotheist" will be released during the spring on an as-yet-undisclosed label. The culmination of some three and a half years of songwriting and recording work, the album was largely produced by the band themselves and financed by their own production company, with additional assistance from HYPOCRISY/PAIN mastermind Peter Tägtgren during the final recording and mixing sessions at Horus Sound Studio in Hanover, Germany. Original CELTIC FROST members Fischer (voice and guitars) and Martin Eric Ain (bass) are joined by Erol Unala (guitar) and Franco Sesa (drums). The band are now managed by Antje Lange for The A Label in Berlin, Germany.

"Monotheist" track listing:

01. Progeny
02. Ground
03. A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh
04. Drown In Ashes
05. Os Abysmi Vel Daath
06. Temple Of Depression (bonus track)
07. Obscured
08. Domain of Decay
09. Ain Elohim
10. Totengott
11. Synagoga Satanae
12. Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three)

CELTIC FROST will make several European festival appearances next summer before embarking on a North American tour in September. A list of currently known FROST live dates can be found at this location.

Read CELTIC FROST's full interview with Terrorizer in the magazine's issue 140, on sale today (January 5).