Morbid Tales

Morbid Tales is the debut record by the Swiss extreme metal band, Celtic Frost, released in November 1984. It was originally released in Europe on Noise Records as a mini-LP with six tracks, while the American release by Enigma/Metal Blade added two tracks, bringing it to the length of a regular studio LP. The band retrospectively refers to the LP release as the band's debut studio album.

In 1999 a remastered edition of Morbid Tales was released on CD by Noise Records, which also contained the tracks from their 1985 EP Emperor's Return as well as a 2017 remastered edition released by the same label on CD and vinyl formats.

Legacy
The thrash metal intensity of Morbid Tales had a major influence on the then-developing death metal and black metal genres. It included elements that were adopted by the pioneers of both styles. The band's bleak and dead serious fashion style was also influential, including their corpse paint face makeup. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked Morbid Tales as 28th on their list of 'The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time.'

In the commentary for Darkthrone's album Panzerfaust, Fenriz cites this album along with Bathory's Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Vader's Necrolust as key riff inspirations.

"Danse Macabre" was later sampled in the demo track "Totgetanzt" from their 2002 demo album Prototype.

Track listings
All music by Thomas Gabriel Fischer, all lyrics by Thomas Gabriel Fischer and Martin Ain, except where noted.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the original editions.
 * Celtic Frost
 * Tom Warrior – guitars, lead vocals, co-producer
 * Martin Ain – bass, bass effects, vocals, co-producer
 * Reed St. Mark – drums on tracks 10–12 (remastered edition)


 * Additional musicians
 * Stephen Priestly – session drums
 * Horst Müller – additional vocals (tracks 3, 5 & 7)
 * Hertha Ohling – additional vocals (track 6)
 * Oswald Spengler – violin (tracks 7 & 8)


 * Production
 * Horst Müller – producer, engineer, mixing, mastering
 * Karl Walterbach – executive producer