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Morbid Tales: A Tribute To Celtic Frost

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    Ian Jane
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  • Morbid Tales: A Tribute To Celtic Frost



    Morbid Tales: A Tribute To Celtic Frost
    Released by: Corpse Flower Records
    Released on: November 13th, 2015.
    Purchase From Amazon

    Last year Corpse Flower Records and CV Comics pout out a release called Morbid Tales! An Illustrated Tribute To Celtic Frost. This was, for all intents and purposes, a comic book written and illustrated by various metalheads and artists edited by Mark Rudolph. Corpse Flower have followed the comic book release up with a limited edition vinyl release 12” of Celtic Frost covers entitled, appropriately enough, Morbid Tales: A Tribute To Celtic Frost.

    The record starts off with Child Bite covering 'The Usurper' with none other than Phil Anselmo joining in on the track. Their take on one of the best tracks off of Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion album is pretty killer, a straight ahead metal track with a nice, thrashy backbone. The vocals are what you'd expect from Anselmo - pissed off but focused, intense and in this case plenty effective with a few nods to Thomas Gabriel Warrior's own vocal style thrown in.

    The second track is Persekutor covering 'Procreation Of The Wicked' from the Morbid Tales album. The vocals here are pretty snarling, pretty guttural at times but the band trudge through this one with seriously heavy results. They don't stray too far from the way that CF originally recorded the track but there's enough interesting spin here that it works. Even heavier is Temple Of Void take on 'Os Abysmi Vel Daath' from Celtic Frost's final album, Monotheist. Frost's original version of this is probably the closest they ever came to true doom and Temple Of Void takes it one or maybe two steps further into that bleak territory with some insanely weighty sludge backing Jason Pearce's already incredibly nasty vocals. This whole record is really good, but this track is definitely a stand out.

    From there, dig into Acid Witch doing 'Cherry Orchards' from Cold Lake, and it starts out with keyboards/synths aplenty. Guitars kick in over top, of course, and it hits a nice tempo a few seconds in and it sounds a bit like early Megadeth at times (in a good way). The vocals here are pretty great, switching back and forth from the evil tone you'd expect but slipping, occasionally, into stranger sort of goblin-sounding territory. Not Goblin the Italian soundtrack kings, but goblin as in the vocals sound like a weird little creature singing to you in spots, complete with a very theatrical cackling here and there.

    Flip that record over, for side B starts off with the mighty Municipal Waste delivering a thrashtastic take on 'Nocturnal Fear,' again from Morbid Tales. Municipal Waste keep this one in the same style as you'd expect them to - it's retro style thrash done right, sloppy and fast with the crazed vocals way up with the guitars in the mix. It's a pretty killer take on the song.

    After that, Hayward (featuring Scott Kelly and Jason Roeder of Neurosis) cover 'Jewel Throne' from To Mega Therion. It's a bit industrial sounding at first, some feedback playing overtop of some pretty rhythmic drumming. The vocals come into the mix, they sound strained but in a good way. There's definitely a mechanical vibe to this, the mix is (likely intentionally) muddy but you could probably dance to this if you wanted to. It's not necessarily heavy, but it's pretty cool in its own unorthodox way (one of the great things about cover albums is hearing different styles recreating something familiar, which is exactly what we get here).

    From there Coffin's Slave (featuring Scott Carlson of Repulsion) dig into 'Dance Sleazy,' an odd choice from Cold Lake but they make it work. A weird retro radio intro sample starts this off and then the guitars kick in nicely along with the rest of the instrumentation. Vocals are good here, this has a really strong unhinged, unpolished sort of punk rock sound to it that makes the track work. The last track on the record is Evoken doing 'Dawn Of Megiddo,' again from the To Mega Therion album. A nice, moody piano bit opens the track but once that's over with things get heavy, doomy and Sabbathy in a big way, at least as far as the playing goes. The vocals do the cookie monster/death metal growl thing but this one trudges along well enough, channeling Frost's original through Evoken's own style and sound with some pretty cool and, towards the end at least, unexpectedly trippy results.

    There's also a 'Flexi Bonus' available that includes Coffin's Slave again, this time covering Hellhammer's 'Reaper.' Oddly enough there's nothing from the Vanity/Nemesis album here at all, go figure. If you opt to buy this one in digital format, you'll get an MP3 bonus track in the form of Black Anvil doing 'Dethroned Emperor' but it wasn't included for review.

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