Celtic Frost Danse Macabre Box Set – The Motherload!

The forthcoming Celtic Frost box-set has received the stamp of approval from Tom Gabriel Warrior! And that, ladies and gentlemen, has us very, very excited for this release!

To quote Tom from his blog…

As a life-long vinyl album collector, I have always felt that a record company’s decision to compile a box set is akin to the band in question being knighted. I was thus delighted to be approached, in November of 2021, by BMG in London with regard to their intention to create and release such a box set containing my former group Celtic Frost’s “classic” releases of the 1980s. Moreover, I felt inspired and grateful that BMG, as the sole owners of the rights in Celtic Frost’s early music, asked me to act as the conceptualist and art director for said box set.

They weren’t obligated to do this, of course, and yet they decided to reached out to me, as they had already for the 2017 reissue of the early Celtic Frost albums and the 2020 reissue of Hellhammer’s Apocalyptic Raids EP. As the current owners of the Noise Records brand, BMG thankfully chose a far more professional, collaborative, and constructive path than the original Noise Records when Celtic Frost and Hellhammer were signed to that label in the 1980s.

The past ten months thus saw a vibrant cooperation between BMG, my manager Antje Lange, and myself. From the beginning, the label was keen to provide very comprehensive contents for the box set. It is to include not only the band’s key Morbid Tales, To Mega Therion, and Into The Pandemonium albums (sourced from the phenomenal re-master executed by Celtic Frost’s/Triptykon’s V. Santura in 2017), but also the 12″ EPs that were released between them and that had always been of such importance to us at the time: Emperor’s Return, Tragic Serenades, The Collector’s Celtic Frost, and I Won’t Dance – the latter notably featuring for the first time the original cover design by Martin and me, shamefully and unilaterally rejected and replaced by Noise Records in 1987.

It was also a pleasure to garnish the box set with a few rather special extras. My favourite one of those is perhaps a newly created 7″ single featuring a fine 1988 remix of the song Visual Aggression from Celtic Frost’s first recording session with drummer Reed St. Mark, and the track Journey Into Fear, recorded during the same session but originally left off the resulting Emperor’s Return EP. It was soon clear to BMG and me that such a unique box set could only be titled Danse Macabre, reflecting the very distinctive and highly experimental nature of the band at the time.

And speaking of Reed, who remains a close friend of mine to this day: it was an absolute pleasure to see him interviewed, along with me, by yet another esteemed friend of mine, journalist Calum Harvie, for an extensively illustrated book containing much background information about Celtic Frost’s exploits and recording sessions during the 1980s.

Above everything, I tried my best to ensure that this box set would have met Martin’s approval, as he was a man whose standards regarding content and quality rank among the highest I have ever encountered. His spirit is unquestionably deeply embedded in this Danse Macabre box set, as it should be.

Official BMG Announcement Text

It almost seems churlish to regard Celtic Frost as one of the great extreme metal bands, because they were so much more than that. It’s better to hail them as among the finest extreme and experimental bands of the 1980s. Refusing ever to do what was expected or demanded, the band constantly changed musical direction, always brought in surprising influences, and kept people guessing as to where they might venture next. Their catalogue of albums is formidable and unmatched. Each is not only unique, but part of an entire tapestry that only now can be appreciated for being a remarkable part of music history. Despite, or maybe because of, constant turmoil on so many fronts, Celtic Frost achieved an artistic level few others would even have dared to dream of aspiring towards. They climbed high because they were never afraid to fall. Which is why the band are now rightly regarded as icons, and iconoclasts.

This box set includes:

Release Date: 28/10/2022