Celtic Frost
Morbid Tales

THE REVIEW

The year is 1984, and Swiss band Celtic Frost, led by Thomas Gabriel Warrior, lays the foundation of what will be their immense castle: this is "Morbid Tales." Celtic Frost's extensive musical exploration begins with a work that fits into the so-called "first wave of black metal", which was in full swing at the time (the previous year, Venom had released "At War With Satan," and Mercyful Fate released "Melissa"): in fact, even though the album essentially belongs to the thrash genre, the dark atmosphere that pervades all the tracks and the lyrics linked to the occult make Celtic Frost one of the most important groups for the development of subsequent black metal.

The ghostly intro "Human" leads us to "Into The Crypt of Rays", a frenetic-paced piece that features all the elements that merge into nearly every track on the album: the dirty and heavy sound of Warrior's guitar, his hoarse and sinister voice, and the relentless drumming of session-man Stephen Priestly. The presence of bassist Martin Eric Ain is perhaps less conspicuous, but he certainly holds his own in terms of aggressive play. It's also interesting to note the singer’s shouts (the classic "Uh!") that will become a genuine recurring signature in his works.

From here on, we sink deeper into darkness, moving from typically thrash songs like "Morbid Tales" and "Visions of Mortality" to extremely slow tracks that seem to come from the underworld, such as "Dethroned Emperor" and "Procreation Of The Wicked". And in the midst of the dense sulfurous cloud, passing through "Return to the Eve", the first instrumental glimmer, "Danse Macabre", can be seen, symbolizing the Swiss band’s desire for renewal and foreshadowing (easy to say in hindsight) the future masterpieces. After "Nocturnal Fear", perhaps the most successful track, the album concludes—in the 1999 remastered version—with three furious gems that seal the whole thing perfectly: "Circle Of The Tyrants", "Visual Aggression" and "Suicidal Winds". 

Even though this is not the work that made Celtic Frost go down in history, it remains an excellent album of wholesome (extreme) metal, which I recommend both for listening to the debut of those who will be the pioneers of avantgarde metal (and thus might be of interest), and for the quality of the tracks themselves, in my opinion noteworthy.