CELTIC FROST's TOM GABRIEL FISCHER Speaks Out On Fate Of Band's Unreleased 1992 Demos

CELTIC FROST mainman Tom Gabriel Fischer recently commented on the possibility of the group's unreleased 1992 demos—recorded during the pre-production sessions for the aborted Under Apollyon's Sun CD—ever being issued on CD and made available to the record-buying public. According to Fischer, “the first 1992 demo was canned by the band, rather immediately after the work on it was closed. As far as I know, there were some copies floating around at CF's then publishing partner (Warner Brothers in NYC),but both the band and Warners knew that neither the demo nor the material on it were serious contenders for any new CF album. For a number of reasons, nothing during these recording sessions came out anywhere near as planned (and by a wide margin, too). And, we had to admit, the choice of studio and engineer was a very bad one. That can happen, even though it shouldn't.

“In any case, we proposed to start from scratch the week after stopping work on it, and Warners accepted (I think very gladly so). They fully funded both demos, after all. I don't think these tracks would have ever been leaked out into the public, if CF would have continued to exist. There have been many tracks in FROST's history that were thrown away, even as far back as Morbid Tales, but because the band still existed and was able to control the disposal at these earlier times, only the ones from the first 1992 demo were ever leaked. For example, nobody outside of the band and record company has *ever* heard the Into the Pandemonium demos.

“We had plenty of new material by 1992, and we knew it really could and should sound a hell of a lot better - we loved, for example, 'Under Apollyon's Sun' on Parched with Thirst, which was also a demo track for the [then] forthcoming CF album Under Apollyon's Sun.

“In August 1992, we relocated out of Manhattan and down to Texas, where we rented a very nice and remote rehearsal facility and then flew in [drummer] Reed [St. Mark] . We spent quite some time there preparing and selecting existing material and writing with Reed. This was an amazing experience, and utterly different from anything that came out of the lousy NYC sessions.

“Whereas we of course couldn't demo the full instrumentation of these songs because this would have completely obliterated both budget and purpose of a mere demo (a major disadvantage always associated with CF, such as when we attempted to demo some of the complex Into the Pandemonium material),we found that the Texas demo recording of December 1992 showed far closer what was to be expected as far as basic tracks for the new album were concerned. The Texas demo of course is what became known as The Nemesis of Power. There was much to be added once we would re-record these songs for the proper album, still, such as an orchestra on 'Pearl of Love', Cello and sampling on 'Devil and the Flesh', and so on.

“I don't think there will ever be an official CF release with these demos, although I hesitate to say 'never'. But many of the songs for the Under Apollyon's Sun album have surfaced in one way or another in any case. There is a track called 'Cradle', which will probably be on the next CF album. This song has also been played onstage by APOLLYON SUN, even though it is basically an unreleased CF song. Also, a 2001 demo exists of 'Solitary Lodge', which is also directly derived from one of that material. APOLLYON SUN's album Sub contains numerous direct songwriting fragments from that material, too. In the very beginning of AS, we also played other CF tracks, like 'Pearl of Love', 'The Man Who Would Weep', and 'Devil and the Flesh'.

“Several of these songs (at times in rewritten versions) are now part of the material scheduled for down-selection for the new CF album, and especially 'Pearl of Love' looks likely to be included. There is quite some more Under Apollyon's Sun material that will definitely make it on the new album.”