Morbid Tales, originally released in 1984, shortly after the demise of Hellhammer, is possibly the most powerful work from Celtic Frost and a statement from the band at the time, looking to distance themselves from Hellhammer's simple (but very effective) garagey sound.
The album opens with a series of screams looped over each other for about a minute and then the album kicks forward into 'Into Crypts of Rays,' a blistering black metal fusion of punk driven by over distorted guitars. The sound is so raw, it sounds other worldly. To achieve this, Tom took his Marshall JCM800 and finally found a pedal to really give it the punch he was looking for - an Ibanez Tube Screamer. It's become a staple of blues and rock guitarists for its ability to push the tubes of a given amp into distorting and with his Marshall on 10 and this pedal at full voice, the amp cranks out some howling tones.
Morbid Tales was first released in Europe with only 6 of these tracks and was filled out with songs from the Emperor's Return EP when it was released for the states, making it a full LP.
There is no filler here - every track is hard-hitting and much more developed than any of Hellhammer's previous material. It includes 'Danse Macabre,' a type of song which was to become somewhat of a staple of the band - an etherial piece that's way more avant guarde than metal and from here on out, they would wear that avant guarde metal tag like a badge, really pushing every album to include tracks in this realm alongside their more metal offerings.
For me, this is the most killer album they released - its raw and direct and the production is suitably free of reverb or other effects and just kills me everytime I hear it. 'Return to the Eve' and 'Procreation of the Wicked' are just killer tracks and even though the band definitely got more talented, that driven punk-influenced Hellhammer sound is still there.
For those of you reading this review who have never listened to Celtic Frost and have records from any black metal after 1989 in your collection - give this a listen. You can hear so many other bands imitations of them in this record - that heavy death and roll sound of Emperor, the tight, focused thrash metal that was being born then and certainly in a lot of the Norwegian and Scandanavian bands that came after them. Celtic Frost were true pioneers and really defined a genre before it truely existed.
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