Into the Pandemonium by Celtic Frost

Into the Pandemonium, Celtic Frost's third album, came out on 1 June 1987 through Noise Records in Europe and Combat in the States, and it's the sound of a Zurich extreme metal band kicking down the walls of the room it built. Guitarist and singer Thomas Gabriel Fischer is still at the wheel, bassist Martin Eric Ain is back after sitting out To Mega Therion, and the band produced it themselves.

The thrash crunch is still there, but it keeps colliding with things no headbanger saw coming: a cover of Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", the industrial clank of "One in Their Pride", gothic gloom, and those orchestral swells and female voices that had already become a Frost signature. The first reviews were split, yet the record won people over and became the band's most successful. It was also their last for Noise, and an expensive legal fight followed after the band accused the label of sabotaging its promotion.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.