Well , Trey called in some favors and brought back Steve Tucker who replaced Vincent once before and performed on Gateways to Annihilation, Heretic and Formulas Fatal to the Flesh, which some would argue are the better Morbid Angel releases. Also joining the fold  is drummer Scott Fuller (Annihilated, ex Abysmal Dawn), an excellent choice, and relatively unknown guitarist Dan Vidim. Now, having seen this lineup perform old and a new song live, I was curious to see how a whole album of this line up fared and if the promising teased songs “Warped” (on the album as “Paradigms Warped” and “Pile of Little Arms” were merely snippets of the whole of of the whole album followed suite. Well, I’m happy to report Morbid Angel are indeed back as Kingdoms Disdained is a return to form and an expected return to the Tucker era of the band.

The meat and potatoes of the album is the slow, miasmal churn of the Tucker trio laced with plenty of blasts and Trey’s other worldly solos and twisty riffage. The 10 songs and perfect 47 minute run time is compact and free from filler . From hard charging opener “Pile of Little Arms” to ” closer “The Fall of Idols”, the band is tangibly and forcefully trying to erase Illud Divinum Insanus  from your memory.  Standouts are the slower Gateways sounding tracks like “Gardens Disdained”, “The Pillars Crumbling”, classic throwback sounding standouts “The Righteous Voice” and “Architect and Iconoclast” or crushingly simple “Declaring New Law” and “Paradigms Warped”, where the heaving, lumbering riffage resonates deft, angular heft, bolstered by Erik Rutan’ s production and will certainly bring a smile to the faces of fans left betrayed by the last effort.

Trey ensures his mark is left on a number of the tracks with his alien solos (“The Righteous Voice”, “From the Hand of Kings”, “The Fall of Idols”) and some of the riffs are clearly from his mind, but I get the sense Tucker was given a pretty free reign with many of the songs, but more on that later. The speedier tracks are less album defining but certainly re-enforce that the band is back as “D.E.A.D”, “For No Master”, “From the Hand of Kings”  and the aforementioned album bookends certainly deliver an more blistering and fierce tone. Not a techno beat, gang chorus or electronic piece anywhere in sight.

Despite the quality of the album, a couple of things  give me pause. First, this is just a few Trey Azagthoth warbly solos  and a blue cover away from  the second album from Tucker’s other band Warfather, The Grey Eminence.  And frankly, if you would have given me this album competently blind, I would have quite easily thought it was Tucker’s third Warfather album. And one has to wonder how the two projects will be defined and separated going forward. Second, the Erik Rutan production, is very similar to Cannibal Corpse‘s recent Red Before Black, and while a very beefy production (arguably the band’s beefiest ever), it’s not anything that immediately identifies with Morbid Angel‘s prior recent Tucker albums which had a little weirdness or off tone that made it clearly Morbid Angel.  Also- despite the Summerian themes, gone are the little quirky Trey-sims and interludes that also define the Tucker era albums. It’s like the band is forcing the straight up death metal a little too hard to make up for Illud Divinum Insanus.

Still, those are minor personal gripes with an otherwise excellent comeback album from a band that truly needed it, and an album that almost atones for llud Divinum Insanus . Almost.

MORBID ANGEL SIGN WITH UDR Music +++

Godfathers of death metal genre to release new album in 2017

Morbid Angel, the Tampa, Florida-based death metal legends, are proud and excited to announce they have signed with UDR Music for all territories exclusively outside Japan. Featuring founder-member and venerated guitar legend Trey Azagthoth plus returning long-time member bassist/vocalist Steve Tucker, Morbid Angel are delighted to be back working with people who know metal music and will ensure the band reaffirm their status as the world’s greatest death metal band.

Or some sick practical joke and somewhere Trey Azagthoth and David Vincent are laughing it up, and will let us in on the joke, then release a proper album, right?

Because if not, I’m going to be pissed, as are lots of other death metal fans.

We waited eight years for this? We waited 16 years for David Vincent to return and deliver this?

Listen, I’m not usually one to buy into the negative hype (I mean, read my Liturgy review) but after reading some reviews and hearing the considerable negative buzz about Morbid Angel’s long awaited 9th album, I had to hear it for myself, thinking “that one track they put out on youtube (“Existo Vulgore”) wasn’t so bad”. But after trying to absorb Illud Divunum Insanus for over a week now, I can truly say it like it is:

This is a real piece of shit.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors about industrialized beats, and even rapping…well, I’m here to tell you they are all true. Death metal veterans may not even recognize or even identify the band initially. Musically, this simply should not even be classified as a Morbid Angel album, as it’s more like some sort of sideshow project. David Vincent sounds awful for about half the album with a processed gruff shout and his lyrics, are at times, utterly inane; “Were the radicals here to say YEAH” “We’ll always be maniacal and animal”. (From “Radikult!”

The burr in most listeners’ asses will be firmly in place after the intro “Omni Potens” as “Too Extreme!” is–I’m going to let that title sink in for a bit–one of the many huge missteps on the album that will have fans up in arms. With a pulsing industrial/techno beat and Vincent talking about how extreme he and the band are, Illud Divunum Insanus takes a turn to the absurd. Then the band tease you with two passable Morbid Angel tracks in the aforementioned “Existo Vulgore” and “Blades for Baal”, and first time listeners may think “Too Extreme!” was just a one time clusterfuck. But you got it. It’s not. Far from it. Other than another couple of tired but still relatively pleasing–considering the rest of the album–death metal tracks in “Nevermore”, “10 More Dead” and “Beauty Meets Beast”, the rest of the album is just head shakingly bad. Stubbornly loyal fans will say that the album is still half quality Morbid Angel death metal. I don’t care because, A) the non shit tracks are pretty dull and awfully mixed, and B) the rest of the album is so shockingly bad that even if Morbid Angel had penned the best five death metal tracks of their entire career, it would not change how ridiculous the rest of the songs are and they wouldn’t be enough to save the whole album.

“I am Morbid” comes across as a sort of mid-paced, nu-metal, chest beating, “We were and are awesome” -metal anthem that Manowar does, complete with crowd chants of “Morbid!” I actually threw up a little bit in my mouth. As much as I hate to get into them, as the rest have to be heard to believe how bad they are; you’ve got “Destructos Vs Earth/Attack” — a Marilyn Manson styled electronica-filled rock song. Then there’s more techno/industrial pop metal for the album’s giant hemorrhoid (of many) in “Radikult”, which I actually hate to bring up and revisit for review purposes. Not least for the fear of getting physically sick again. Just…ugh…my god! Stop it! I hoped that closer “Mea Culpa” (latin for my apologies), is a thinly veiled apology to the fans as we deserve it after sitting through the album, but it’s a programmed techno speed metal track that sounds something like The Berzerker but way shittier.

Some (I’m guessing few) may view Illud Divunum Insanus as a controversial, unique, brave and genre shattering experiment of extremity–sorry Trey, posting quotes from your metal pals like Karl Sanders and Mikael Akerfeldt about how good the album is on your Facebook-page comes across as desperate–but most will find it a horrible waste of time and the musing of a self-absorbed Trey Azagthoth.

Better titles for the album might have been Idiotic, Insanely Bad or Insipid. And while I doubt their place in death metal’s pantheon and previous legendary discography, especially the David Vincent -era that they’re pissing on right here, will really be lessened by one album over twenty years later. The fact is, however, that Morbid Angel have seriously really tried hard to do just that, and tarnish their legacy and possibly their future with their own St Anger (but worse).

At least we can still listen to the awesome new Hate Eternal or Nader Sadek albums to see how former Morbid Angel members are faring. Much fucking better, I think.

A little background: Rock & Republic is an American designer clothing company. Their motto goes something like this: “Rock & Republic means edgy, progressive design inspired by Rock & Roll and with an emphasis on modern silhouettes and a sleek fit. Each piece in the collection is designed for sexy, confident men and women who live the lifestyle and really understand the look.” I pulled that from Rock & Republic’s website.

So, now that we have a jean branded with the music genre of ‘Death Metal’ and a company slogan that appeals to ‘sexy, confident men and women who live the lifestyle,’ one has to wonder what the designers at Rock & Republic were thinking. I mean, they approved Victoria Beckham to design her own branded jeans. So, next in line was ‘Death Metal’? Either they’re too hip, clueless, or someone, like Michael Ball, has a secret love affair with Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and Morbid Angel and the fashion world is too narcissistic to notice. Green light mama Becks. Next? Green light ‘Death Metal!’ Not sure I understand the logic.

Anyway, the point of this here blogenstein is to show metal dudes/dudettes have been dressing for excess for millenia. Unless you’re Dani Filth or Oscar Dronjak, maybe it’s OK to get some of these suckers. I mean with names like “Breakthru Grey Darkness,” “Chaos Blue Bruise,” Lethal Black Heat” (for the ladies), “Ricochet In Xtreme Blue,” and “Accomplice Foe” (again for the chicas), Rock & Republic did some homework by consulting About.com. They probably cheated. If they really wanted authenticity, they should’ve called us, paid us huge sums of greenbacks (well, we prefer GBPs or Euros, at the moment), and then they could officially brand the jean ‘Death Metal.’ Hear us R&R? Oh, and ‘Death Metal’ refers to the back pocket design. Not the jean.

The jeans, at the cheapest, will set you back around $300. Ouch! That’s a frickload of import CDs. But if you’ve bought into the ‘Death Metal’ concept and are, in fact, a modemensch then click here.