In a new, brutally honest interview, Celtic Frost visionary Tom Gabriel Fischer has once again condemned the band’s controversial 1988 album, Cold Lake, calling it the absolute “worst album of” his “44 years as a musician.” However, in a surprising turn of reflection, he also now views the “catastrophe” as an “important step” that was ultimately a “gift.”
Speaking with Colombia’s “Alejandrosis“, Fischer did not mince words when reflecting on the infamous record, which saw the pioneering extreme metal band pivot to a more glam-influenced sound.
“Cold Lake was an experiment at the time that we thought would be interesting. We wanted to have an album that is a little more positive, a little more melodic… but it turned out to be a huge mistake artistically,” Fischer said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). He listed the album’s many failings, stating it has “a bad production, it has bad songwriting, it has bad lyrics, it has a bad presentation.”
Despite his harsh critique, Fischer now sees a silver lining in the artistic failure. He explained that the experience, while painful, was a crucial learning moment in his long career.
“I think Cold Lake was probably an important step in becoming more critical towards myself in analyzing my own work and implementing a higher quality standard towards my own work,” he explained. “So even though musically I think it’s a terrible album, it probably made me a more mature human being and a more mature or more experienced musician.”
Fischer‘s harsh assessment of the album is not a new development. In a 2020 interview, he called the record a “monumental failure” and an “artistic embarrassment,” stating that at the time, many bands, including his own, had “lost their plot.”
“The album no longer sounds like Celtic Frost, it no longer has the depth and seriousness that Celtic Frost had,” he said in that earlier interview.
