Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
The debut release by Celtic Frost is one of those releases that could be deemed either an EP at around 25 mins which it was in Europe, or as a full album at 31 mins which it was on its US release, and the latter release is the one I’m reviewing here. One thing is for sure though, the introduction of Celtic Frost into the ingoted streams of metal, ushered in one of the genres greatest extreme metal exponents and album for album they also rank as one of the best and most consistent bands within the metal genre, Death are another band in my mind that have a discography that matches Celtic Frost in terms of consistent quality. Celtic Frost though were a far more encompassing band than most and a band that I would truly call ‘extreme metal’ which is a label of course that can have two meanings. 1) An umbrella term which covers all the extreme styles like thrash, black and death etc and the one it’s most known for. 2) It also fits bands like Venom who all put out musical styles that either included some or all of the elements that included thrash, black and death metal, and any band under this banner would be a big influence on these genres and Celtic Frost of course were one such band. The band were formed in Zurich out of the elements of Hellhammer (I’ll be covering some of these bands briefly in an extra section) where Thomas Gabriel Fischer aka Warrior was the main link between the two bands and he with bassist Martin Eric Ain would write all the material for the band’s early releases. Part of the Celtic Frost magic are indeed its inspirational roots, which included the likes of Black Sabbath and Venom (expected) but just as important to them were the inspiration from the British gothic/hardcore scene at the time, which included the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Discharge, which of course with the band’s huge talent led to a delicious distillation of all these styles. The first few albums by the band are pure extreme metal releases that can easily lay waste to much of the competition, before they eventually moved with equal venom into a more avant-garde metal style later in the decade. The album cover to Morbid Tales of which there are a couple of variations (not sure which one I put in the end) does nothing to hide what the material would be like underneath and despite witchcraft or satanic themes hardly being anything new at this time in either music or film, few in 1984 would’ve expected the intense fury that would lie underneath this album, unless of course the listener had already dabbled with the likes of Metallica and especially Slayer. The album starts in blistering style with the frenetic speed of “Into the Crypts of Rays” and welcome to the Warrior’s distinctive vocal style before the song goes into that pivotal awkward melodic style that a number of thrash bands would adopt at times. “Visions of Mortality” is a much slower affair and by now you can notice Thomas Gabriel Fischer’s similarity vocally with Tom Araya of Slayer, and of course the song as expected speeds up in places. The next two tracks are the additional tracks for this release “Dethroned Emperor” and title track “Morbid Tales”. The first introduces that death metal grunt and one almighty Diamond Head inspired riff to go with it, the second if not quite as essential is still a credible effort. "Procreation (Of The Wicked)" is without doubt one of the beasts of the album and its primitive grind, surely influenced my beloved Sepultura right here (they even covered in in their Roots period) and following track "Return to the Eve" provides more variety and again has a killer riff, but I admit I don't really like the female voice over here. "Danse Macabre" is an experimental track that just sounds nasty and "Nocturnal Fear" brings back the thrash again but with some interesting experimental touches. So apart from this blistering debut was else was so essential about this Germanic-language band? Firstly they wore black leather with corpse-like face paint which influenced hordes of other bands out there, but secondly and most notably they introduced a central European concept to extreme metal, which was different to anything that could’ve come from either the UK and USA, and along with the likes of Mercyful Fate were largely responsible for setting up an extreme European metal scene that is just as relevant today.

Thomas Gabriel Fischer- Guitar/Vocals
Martin Eric Ain- Bass
Stephen Priestly- Drums

Production- Celtic Frost

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