Morbid Angel's new album, Illud Divinum Insanus, comes to us after a eight years. While Trey and David Vincent have been reunited for quite a few years, and playing shows, we're only now hearing new offerings. It's not safe to say that an album eight years in the making will blow minds and be perfect. A rejoining of one of the best duos in death metal also doesn't mean that the album will be perfect. The new Morbid Angel album is, well, um, it's new.
The album's opener, Omni Potens, serves as an intro, but can easily be thrown away. The first real track, Too Extreme, is too extreme. Lets forget for a moment that Morbid Angel is the band that brought you such classics as Alters of Madness and Blessed are the Sick. The opening lines to this song are, "This is a warning." No shit. It's not secret that Trey Azagthoth has an affinity of electronic music, and it shows on this album, a little too much (sometimes you shouldn't bring you hobbies to the office). It sounds like Morbid Angel was listening to Ministry, a lot. The drums sound like they were sampled from a Berzerker album. Before this track is over you're scratching you head wondering why after eight years of waiting you get this. You feel like you've been wronged.
Don't fret, the next four songs will reassure you that the Florida deathsters haven't ran off the deep end. These are the tracks remind you of who this band is. Think Domination era, Vincent's vocals are as good as ever. However this moment of rejoicing is then broken up again by the song Destructos Vs. The Earth - Attack, an even worse attempt at industrial music. Radikult is even worse, take the lyrics from Body Count's Cop Killer and place it over really, really bad industrial rock. Hearing Vincent scream 'Kill a Cop' makes me uncomfortable, not that he'd kill cop, but a Morbid Angel album is the last place you'd hear something like this.
Nevermore has been well heard for the past few years, and should have been the album's opening. Vincent's roar is like a lion who has just reclaimed his throne. It's as if he never left. While videos of this song have been all over the web, hearing the studio version is welcomed with open ears. It served as insurance to the fans that we'd see another album. Unfortunately, Tim Yeung's fill in spot is not as exciting. As amazing as this Yeung is (winner of the fastest feet award), this guy was born and raised on Florida death metal. He does a great job sounding exactly like Pete 'The Feet' Sandoval'. He was hired because he could replicated Sandoval's work
I'm sorry to say it, but this album shows why musicians should start side projects. The industrial tracks are completely misplaced. If he has released them under another moniker, then we'd all be happy. This album is a mixed bag, the good tracks are good and what you'd expect. The problem is, it's a new album. Hearing this album is like seeing a friend who'd been away for years and is the same, but with a few new quirks from their travels. Why Trey and the gang decided the infused what should have been a good return with confusion is beyond me. This is not to be confused with the a fan's demand for the familiar and same old. Perhaps this was the only way These new sounds would get heard, and quickly ignored.
The video below was taken from Metalsucks.net
"A few years ago there was this popular internet meme in which people took a scene from Downfall, a movie about Hitler’s final days, and re-did the subtitles so that, instead of reacting to the news that he was losing the war, The Führer seemed to be freaking out about some horribly insignificant bit of nerdery (e.g., that the end of The Watchmen movie wasn’t exactly the same as the end of The Watchmen graphic novel, etc.).
Like most memes, it got old after awhile. But our friend Mark sent us the below one over the weekend, and, well… I don’t think I have ever typed these words before, nor am I likely to ever type them again:
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