Send "Morbid Angel " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Metal is full of bands that love to continually evolve, to expand their sounds more and more with each new record, challenging their audiences with bold pieces of work. And as fans, we love it when bands do that well. It’s exciting to know there are musicians out there trying to take the genre into new, unexplored places. However, if you’re a band that’s bent on trying a new sound, you’d better know what you’re doing, because as loyal as metal fans are, if you do something that feels to them less adventurous and more like flat-out betrayal, the backlash will be swift, and will take years to undo. Hell hath no fury like a metal fan who doesn’t get what he or she wants.Just like there’s an unspoken metal “canon” featuring albums that are mandatory for a metal enthusiast to know, there’s a group of records that are so universally reviled that the album title supersedes the name of the band who recorded it, in ways becoming metal obscenities: Cold Lake, St. Anger, The Unspoken King, The X Factor, Risk, Grand Declaration of War. And every single one of those albums has one thing in common: they’re all examples of established, seminal bands trying to reinvent themselves, with catastrophic results. It’s understandable to see how a veteran act would want to try something new, but when the influence of their early material is so strong, it’s next to impossible to convince the fans otherwise, and such experiments by those kinds of bands rarely if ever work....full text |
| Angrymetalguy |
| Some records are so monumental that you need more than one opinion on them, particularly if those records have created this kind of feedback. In this case, we will be reviewing Morbid Angel‘s newest record. This is monumental, there is no other way to put it. Morbid Angel is elite death metal and has been the standard for as long as I can remember. They have defined death metal for listeners of the genre for decades, influenced all of the great bands to come out of the genre after them, and have been away for 8 long years. 2003′s Heretic was not the best record they’d ever produced, this is most certainly true. But there was no reason not to believe after hearing “Nevermore,” the single that was released ahead of time, that the return of David Vincent would usher in the kind of catastrophic reaction that has ensued. I make it my business to never read reviews of any record before I write my own review, hell, I haven’t even read Steel Druhm’s (which is below this one) of this record. But it was hard to miss the fury, anger and disappointment that has been floating around the ether. I had to ask myself “could it really possibly be this bad?” You see, I’m a stalwart defender of some pretty hated records (most notably Iron Maiden‘s The X Factor and Mayhem‘s Grand Declaration of War), and I try to listen to every record with a clean slate. And I attempted to do so with this record, as well. So after the obligatory metal record intro entitled, cutely, “Omni Potens,” the damage starts and it is entitled “Too Extreme!” I’m not sure how familiar everyone is with the maxim of American politics “If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” but I think it’s time to coin that rule for metal. “Too Extreme!” is basically an industrial track with highly repetitive 8th note bass drum being carried by a shitty drum machine. This is a lot more akin to something that would have been in Vampire: Bloodlines than something that should be on a Morbid Angel record. Not only is the music mind-numbingly boring, but the lyrics are painfully fucking stupid. If you have to tell me how extreme you are, you are losing. And this isn’t the only time this happens, here. In fact, on “I Am Morbid” and “Radikult,” there is a weird, self-referential nature to the lyrics that just lose me. This is fucking “extreme metal”, not hip hop. Body Count ain’t in the house....full text |
| Metalreview |
| The kings of death metal have returned, and our faith has remained strong in waiting. Although the last time we were blessed with a Morbid Angel album, 2003’s rather uneventful Heretic, many of us considered it to be only a mild stumble in their legendary catalogue, and we remained loyal nonetheless. But that was eight very long years ago, and the playing field has changed greatly since. They wish to be referred to as “extreme” metal, and I sure won’t tell them not to, but when taking in the level of quality to be found on their returning endeavor, their new direction is difficult to view in the positive even with the most forgiving ear. Our convictions let us believe that Illud Divinum Insanus could be a conquering return, especially with the return of David Vincent, the man who led the band to some of its greatest victories. But our faith has been met with betrayal, and our rulers have thrown us to the dogs. But maybe we all should have known better, shouldn’t we? All signs pointed to a departure of vast lengths, but this treason is beyond our imagining. It wouldn’t surprise me if Trey never turned over the demos to Season Of Mist. Or perhaps the label, thrilled to have signed the highest-priority act in death metal today, wore rose-colored glasses and had no real idea what atrocity was about to transpire. Morbid Angel has all but abandoned everything that made them the top-tier performers they once were, striking down their death metal aesthetic in favor of an outdated, lazy techno/industrial vibe that sounds hilariously out of place. This attempt at diversity is really not funny at all, but the disbelief when hearing songs like “Radikult” and “Too Extreme!” is profound, and laughter is only a defense mechanism. Something has gone terribly wrong here, and it is utterly baffling that this was allowed to happen. About three-fifths of this album should have been relegated to the cutting room floor and burned beyond recognition, and the industrialized, dumbed-down Front Line Assembly misstep of “Too Extreme!” has them stumbling badly right out of the gate. The lyrical palette seems to have been culled from the bottom of Rob Zombie’s rejection barrel once he realized he does not play half-baked hip hop, but the problem doesn’t lie with what they’ve done, but how they’ve done it. I’ve heard industrial music and techno vibes being taken to devastating extremes; maniacal, inhuman, mechanical brutality, and Illud incorporates none of those things. Instead, they’ve gone for the easily digested pop side of the coin, showing that Trey and David’s personal listening habits have bled into their own art with disastrous results. And yet, there are still glimmers of hope amongst all this mess, and they come with the inclusion of the brief (and sadly, few) death metal songs that actually do sound like the Morbid Angel we’ve always known....full text |
Morbid Angel lyrics
|
| |||||||
