Cold Lake (album)

Untitled

Cold Lake was an album by the Swiss avant-garde metal band Celtic Frost. It was not popular with the group or its fans and is no longer available to buy making the album much sought after by collectors.

Background

After a disheartening end to their "One In Their Pride" tour in Dallas, Texas, Thomas G. Warrior decided to end the band. Though in mid 1988, to the request of Oliver Amberg and support of producer Tony Platt, the band was resurrected, though with an entirely new line-up (Oliver Amberg – guitars, Curt Victor Bryant – bass, Stephen Priestley – drums and additional vocals). Even though the project had the cooperation of Warrior, he held little interest in it and so allowed Amberg to do the major body of composition.

Reaction

The album was released in 1988 and received hugely negative reviews by critics and the band was labeled a sell-out by its core fanbase. The music was changed to sound much more like glam metal such as Mötley Crüe (a popular style at the time) than that of the hardcore underground proto-black metal sound or thrash/death metal that defined the band (and its early incarnation, Hellhammer) or avant-garde influenced doom/death sound era Into the Pandemonium.

Legacy

Amberg was quickly fired after the release of the album. When the band re-issued its back catalogue in 1999, they purposely omitted Cold Lake. Its rarity means good copies are now quite expensive, for example in UK albums are now priced at around £70 .

Some of the tracks appear on the compilation album Parched With Thirst Am I and Dying but in a different, heavier mix that Tom Warrior supervised.

Tom Warrior had this to say about Cold Lake:

I was too eager to simply have a good time, I was too happy to have new musicians who actually wanted to write and who didn't leave me with the immense burden of writing and producing the entire album (as it had been for the first three Celtic Frost albums). I therefore loosened control (of material and quality) too much. And I was too glad to let the darkness go – right down to the band’s image.

The original concept for Cold Lake as outlined was now taking on its own dynamics and our focus became totally out of control. What was going to be a far more melodic (commercial) album by the original line-up became an overblown steam release valve for past frustrations, recorded by new musicians who didn’t yet understand the legacy of Celtic Frost.

Tony Platt’s faulty production and the hefty disagreements he had with us contributed to this. The mistakes are countless. Just two here: we didn’t let go of Tony because we wanted a major name attached to the album – after all, that was what Celtic Frost always requested from Noise Records and had never gotten. Now it was possible. And Celtic Frost’s traditional complete ignorance of what was appropriate now backfired when we did Cold Lake in this totally inappropriate way.

Track listings

All tracks are written by Celtic Frost.

• All songs published by Maldoror Musikverlag.

  Side one

  No.	Title	Length
  1.	"Human II (Intro)"	1:06
  2.	"Seduce Me Tonight"	3:18
  3.	"Petty Obsession"	3:17
  4.	"They Were Eagles"	3:39
  5.	"Cherry Orchards"	4:19
  6.	"Juices Like Wine"	4:17

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Little Velvet"	3:40
2.	"Petty Obsession"	3:17
3.	"Blood on Kisses"	3:29
4.	"Downtown Hanoi"	4:15
5.	"Dance Sleazy"	3:32
6.	"Roses with Thorns"	3:26

Two bonus tracks were included on the original CD release.

No.	Title	Length
13.	"Tease Me"	2:47
14.	"Mexican Radio (Live)"	3:32

Credits

• Tom Gabriel Fischer – Guitars, Vocals
• Oliver Amberg – Guitars
• Curt Victor Bryant – Bass
• Stephen Priestly – Drums, Backing Vocals

Production

• Produced By Celtic Frost & Tony Platt
• Assistant Engineers: Thomas Steeler, Dexter
• Mixed At Conny Plank Studio.