Chris very politely informed us that the review of the new Morbid Angel already online was respectfully utter hogwash. We decided that if he had a differing opinion he should get it off his chest and vent his feelings for everyone to read. Let’s face it his ‘extreme’ viewpoint was one that many of you share and perhaps Pete was playing devil’s advocate a bit too much.
Right off the bat, I have to declare my interests on this one. The fact is, I always preferred Steve Tucker as the frontman for Morbid Angel. Yeah, I know David Vincent was always the fan favourite, and to be sure he casts an imposing figure as a frontman – or at least he did before all the PVC, eyeliner and hairspray. I also know that a lot of you out there think that Altars of Madness and Blessed Are The Sick are amazing, groundbreaking pieces of death metal perfection, whereas I find them very overrated, occasionally interesting albums. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh, the 1997 debut of Tucker, was a massively inventive, frequently twisted work of art. The 2000 follow up, Gateways to Annihilation was a hostile, alien work of oppressive malevolence that brooded from the speakers. Yes, 2003’s Heretic was ostensibly the sound of a once mighty beast treading water. Then came the return of the prodigal son: Vincent. It seems churlish not to mention his lengthy stint dressed like a particularly horrific transsexual prostitute in tedious shock-act The Genitorturers, more famous for their sexual approach to music than the content of their albums themselves. Would Illud Divinum Insanus be a return to form, a place-holding album to tread water while the band learned how to coalesce back into shape, or break new boundaries?
Well, as it turns out, this album – this album, perhaps the single most anticipated extreme metal album ever is one of the single most appalling albums I have had the misfortune to hear. As a music reviewer, exposed to the hyperbole of the music industry mandarins and spin doctors, it’s sometimes easy to slip into their habits and produce reviews which match them for extremity and shock value. Not this time. I pick my words very carefully: this is simply put the most bafflingly terrible album that has ever been put out by a “superpower” of the extreme metal world.
It starts in a predictable, even quite effective fashion. “Omni Potens” is the obligatory symphonic opening, with some martial atmosphere and “hoooo-wah!” chanting. So far so good…even though it does sound like a rough Nile demo.
Yet, what’s this large turd shaped cloud on the horizon? It’s opener proper, uh, “Too Extreme!” (the exclamation point is sadly not mine). It’s an odd beast – the drums sound like something you would dredge up from a Utah Saints album circa 1996, the guitar sounds like it was actually ripped from a White Zombie album of the same time period, while Vincent spouts banal crap like “We’ve come to spread our insane”. It could actually be the soundtrack to a club scene in a film – not a good film, though. Maybe the kind of late night straight to TV fodder enjoyed on MOVIES FOR MEN +1. If the sub-par Ultraviolence techno/gabba influences at around the 2:49 mark don’t make you want to smash your speaker stack in, then you’re made of sterner stuff than me. By all means, put this out as a remix EP track – fuck, no one buys them anyway, but to place this as the opener of your much anticipated come back album isn’t so much of a brave move as a calculated kick in the testicles, complete with 20 yard run up.
“Existo Vulgore” fares a little better, being a more traditional death metal number. The sad thing is, it sounds like just the kind of track that hordes of Morbid Angel copy bands have been putting out for the last fifteen years. It has blast beats. It has a gruff singing David Vincent. It has the odd Azagthoth flourish here and there. What it doesn’t have is any soul, at all. It sounds just as uninspired as the tracks that preceded it on Heretic.
“Blades for Baal” is one of the better songs on the album. Ironically, perhaps, it has most in common with a Hate Eternal track, with a relentless and enthusiastically aggressive sound, with some of the old Trey magic to the riffs, with a nice line in that demented, dragging backwards through the speakers vibe. Again, the best that can be said about it really is that it’s ok. It isn’t massively memorable, nor does it break any new ground.
“I am Morbid” represents yet another aural equivalent of posting dog excreta through your letterbox while you sleep. It’s basically a mainstream rock song for the MTV generation. Take a while to drink that last sentence in, then remember that this is a Morbid Angel album. The lyrics? Beyond profound. “I’m Morbid / I’m Morbid / I’m Sordid / So Distorted”. This could be the kind of Metal Hammer baiting pap that Disturbed and Co. would produce.
“10 More Dead”. At this point in the album, I am wishing I was one of that lucky throng.
“Destructo vs The Earth”. I did toy with the idea of just leaving this song title do all the talking, but I wasn’t sure it would portray how much of a massive misstep it represents. This is a dance music track – complete with looping drums, simplistic bass pounding and a “catchy” chorus. I think this may have been an attempt to capture some kind of extreme reaction from the listener. It has. I almost jerked a muscle in my arm trying to frantically hit the “next” button on my stereo. You remember those mash up albums of the mid-to late 90’s? Like the Mortal Kombat soundtrack or the Hellspawn Earache album where dance music bands and metal crews would combine to produce hideous musical abortions? They would have rejected this shit for being too lame.
“Nevermore” is apparently the good song on the album, according to the internetistas. It’s not bad – but then I could probably record my bowel movements on a C90 and place that after the previous song and it would sound good by comparison. Yet again, it’s a by-the-numbers Morbid Angel track that wouldn’t have dared show its face – not even on the relatively ordinary Domination.
“Beauty Meets Beast” rounds off the album for tracks I can actually stand to listen to. It’s an average song that lacks any particular spark or inspiration.
“Radikult”. I personally feel this may be a misspelling – Radicunt would be a much more apt title. If” Destructo” pushed canine shit into your home, “Too Extreme!” kicked you in the stones and “I am Morbid” tries to feel your mums clunge, then “Radikult” has stolen your car, burned your house down and pushed your belongings into a shredder. The shoddy likes of Transport League were producing tosh better than this in 1995. Morbid Angel rapping the words “Kill A Cop” repeatedly over the kinds of beats that sounded dated in the mid nineties? It’s all a bit too much like watching your dad trying to break dance at a family wedding while out of his mind on Special Brew and class A narcotics: it would be laughable if it wasn’t someone you actually care about. Still, at least it doesn’t last for 7 minutes and 37 fucking ever-lasting seconds. Oh bugger.
“Mea Culpa” (translation: all my own fault – never a truer word) rounds things off nicely with the kind of half-arsed metal / electronica mash that Fear Factory would have laughed at in 1992.
See, my complaint isn’t that they have incorporated electronic music in their work. In fact, I’m a bit of a sly fan of these influences in my metal – from the avant-garde Project Failing Flesh, the brilliance of the Eric Forrest period Voivod, the tasteful works of The Monolith Deathcult – I mean, I’ll even admit to liking the Apollyon Sun EP. Yes, it was me that bought it in the UK. My complaint is that this is so badly executed as to be horribly dated and ham fisted. The death metal sounds like it was put together at gun point, such is the lack of flair and enthusiasm. The electronica – always prone to be dated much quicker than the analogue sound – is already poorly executed and tired now, let alone how feeble it is going to sound in two years time. That an occult, frequently mysterious and majestic beast must now resort to wheeling out embarrassed quotes from “celebrity” metal bands is probably the final insult. It’s too early to say if Morbid Angel are dead – though at this stage the status of Pete Sandovahl is dubious, but this current line up will have their work cut out for them if they think the fan base, or indeed anyone else, is going to be clambering for more of this. It’s too insipid for the death metal fans, and too poorly executed for the mainstream crowd. Thus Illud Divinum Insanus not only falls down the crack of its own arsehole, it falls down the cracks of the marketplace.
Morbid Angel? Pfffffft. Moribund Angel, arise.
Chris Davison
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