Morbid Angel Poll

wait, I just realized something. A,B,C,D,F,G... is that a coincidence? am i an idiot for just realizing that? don't answer that...

Altars of Madness
Blessed Are the Sick
Covenant

^^^ cant decide... probably Blessed

wait, I just realized something. A,B,C,D,F,G... is that a coincidence?

yep. somebody tell them, i can't wait to see the look on their faces! there's actually two a's if you count their demo/album abominations of desolation, but they don't seem to.

voting for altars. blessed is probably tied, though, it's just that the second side kinda runs out of steam with a bunch of covers of early material. i thought heretic wasn't bad. i don't remember most of the rest of them, except the D one being sludgy and kind of stupid.

Why they miss E out?

I go with Blessed though I think Gateways is hugely underrated - people seemed to have kinda burned out on Morbid Angel by the time it came out, but it was pretty great

I voted for Blessed.

altars all the way. I never really got into blessed, aside from "thy kingdom come". though all the comments here are making me think I should pull it out again for a test drive.

some ancient sandbox content, my sub-custos translation of morbid angel lyrics...

Lyrics:
Ghouls attack the church
Crush the holy priest
Turning the cross towards hell
Writhe in satan's flames

TRANSLATION: Legions of undead creatures are laying seige to a denominational Christian house of worship. Said creatures plan to administer grievous bodily harm to the resident authority figure via a sudden and violent application of pressure, which will surely result in contusions and discomfort. As a religious symbol of great import is inverted to represent a rejection of its implicit value system, it will also be set ablaze. This act yields a twofold result; it adds further physical discomfort to the already-suffering religous representative, and it also elicits gyrations of a sensual nature on the part of those who have pledged allegiance to the diametrically-opposed teachings of the fallen archangel, Lucifer, of whom I consider myself a representative.

Lyrics:
Crush the priest
The feeble church

TRANSLATION: I order you now to join the army of undead creatures in their physical abuse of the clergyman. I have adjudged the status of the Christian religion as a whole and found it to be lacking in sufficient force to defend itself against attack.

Lyrics:
Dead - your god is dead
Fools - your god is dead
Useless prayers of lies
Behold Satan's rise

TRANSLATION: The all-powerful sentient being that you worship is deceased. Belief in this monotheistic entity is surely a sign of buffonery on your part since, as I restate, this entity has ceased to exist. Therefore your continued entreaties for the extinct spirit to intervene on your behalf are not only futile, but may also be patently false. Now please bear witness to the subsequent elevated status of my preferred symbolic personification of evil-doing. Hoo hah!

There's a live one for "E". "Entangled In Chaos", I think?

Decided to bust out Blessed after not hearing it for many years. Too bad the production is so thin on this album. I guess it's just the ear of the beholder - I remember it as being really heavy and full back in the day. Maybe it's just listening to it on headphones. It's still a great album. Up next is Covenant, which I also haven't listened to in many years.

Never knew/heard enough about this shit but the album with 'Brainstorm' always out Slayered Slayer - with their lightning bolt(not that shit D&B love in - nah love em)) riffs

Sorry - solos - not riffs. How dare i?

Great band

I guess it's just the ear of the beholder

BATS is really dry and odd-sounding. there's definitely substance to the production but it's quirky and sounds really shit on some stereos/headphones.

I gotta go with Covenant... maybe because it was the first death metal album i ever owned.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

oh and WTF at Azagthoth's thank you list from Heretic. What a weirdo.

that pretty much sums him up. nice guy, though.

altars

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i am completely unsurprised.

Gateways is underrated OK but I think this poll shakes out almost exactly right.

ok listening to Domination back to back with Covenant this morning and thinking that Domination is pretty underrated

been listening to blessed a lot lately... not quite the dud I thought it was, been loving "the ancient ones", but still can't rate it over altars. there's not an ounce of fat on altars, whereas the midi-harpsichord and acoustic gtr interludes on blessed dilute the overall effect.

almost every move they pull on blessed was already waxed more effectively on altars, plus, "chapel of ghouls" will always sound like demon hordes riding firehorse steeds over the hills and decapitating everything in their path, yes, even puppies and squirrels, so fuck...

Why they miss E out?

It seems that E is indeed for the live album, but wouldn't it be great if the E was for Eddie Van Halen. I'm pretty sure Azagthoth is a disciple.

The kept this convention going for Illud Divinum Insanus, but unfortunately decided not to take my suggestion of Junk Insanus for the remix collection.

gateways robbed

Funny this got bumped... Blessed just clicked into place for me earlier today. I got it a while back, but I suppose I was never quite in the right frame of mind for it. It really rips, though. I do kind of hate the sort of distant, flat recording; I found that giving the treble on my EQ a pretty big boost helped bring the sound into focus.

I still haven't heard Blessed, I actually bumped the thread because these dudes were on my mind since I picked up Altars today.

That's the one I need next! I'm pretty noobish with metal, and death is finally clicking for me I think. It took me a little while to get past the vocals, but I had this weird duck-rabbit-y perspective shift when I was listening to Blessed today wherein I started hearing the vocals as hip hop almost, as a measured cadence all about rhythm and inflection and measured force. It's hard to describe. But it was really interesting to have it just sort of *ding* for me. I think I'm used to black metal, where the voice generally washes into the wash/rush of the rest of it even when it's harsh/syllable-spitty. Suffocation versus stabbing.

I also just recently got Individual Thought Patterns by Death, however, which I loved immediately.

I just picked up Altars of Madness... It completely rules. It's a freaking blast to walk around NYC and dive in and out of subways (part of my day-to-day job) with this stuff in my headphones. I do have the urge to do that David Vincent "OOOOOOOOOO" at random strangers, though.

An urge we all struggle with, similar to Tom G. Warrior Syndrome.

Just popped in to say

NAZAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEENE

just got tix to the Morbid Angel tour where they're playing Covenant in its entirety.

My relationship with M.A. is weird. They're the exact type of death metal I love the most, and yet I've barely listened to them in ten years. The first M.A. I got was "Covenant" and it wasn't linear enough for my ears as it was only the third death metal album I'd bought. "Domination" I grew to like for its weird harmonies and moods. But "Altars" was the one I all-out fell in love with, the chaotic-thrashy death. Couldn't quit playing it. Ate up "Blessed" too, but it's been so long since I spun it I barely remember it.

I actually liked Formulas and Gateways just fine, Heretic bored the hell out of me, and didn't hear the new one other than the shitty 'industrial' singles. Got a CD copy of Covenant this weekend (as I'd only had it on cassette previously) and this is a really solid album! It's not as essential as the first two, but this is the first proper listen I've given it in over a decade and I'm going to enjoy hearing this material live.

Best thing I heard these guys do was a remix by Laibach. Can anyone remind me of what it was?

Probably God of Emptiness, maybe Sworn to the Black?

was anybody else's first exposure to these guys the Beavis and Butthead episode where they were imitating Vincent singing "BOOWWWWWW TO ME FAITHFULLYYYYYYYYYY"?

^^ yes

was feelin a little sunday night sad, put on covenant, cleared that right up

^ power of music right there

Recently realized I saw Morbid Angel live once (2002-3) and forgot all about it. They were opening for Motörhead; Today Is The Day and (REO) Speedealer were also on the bill.

jus like a snake god, slither-in

Surprised but pleased that Blessed bested Altars. Seems like every other online metal community ranks A well over B and while I love both of those albums I think the second really took Morbid Angel beyond the realm of "amazing metal" into something more grand and imposing. I admit though that some of those instrumentals make me feel less like a flesh and blood necromancer plumbing the depths of tombs and more like a twinkling SNES sprite hopping through a side-scrolling 16-bit cemetery.

I'm going to take this opportunity to once again suggest that fans of MA, early era specifically, hike on over to Domains' bandcamp and grab (for free!) the best death metal album put out in ages, Sinister Ceremonies. The songwriting, the atmosphere, the musicianship, all of it sounds like it came bubbling up through that portal on the Altars cover art. (And its own cover art is likewise amazing.) It sort of combines that classically composed Blessed stuff with the blackened occult aggression of the Altars stuff. Top shelf.

https://domainsofdeath.bandcamp.com/

I liked that instrumental a lot. Wish there was more stuff like that (not necessarily on that album).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZJVcPlx39s

Buncha nerds on rolling metal copping to not getting these guys wtf nerds go back to listening to Nightwish

I'm a Tarja-era Nightwish apologist and yet I have to say you are OTM

I think Covenant is now my fav

"Immortal Rites" actually summons Sumerian demons, make sure not to go to the bathroom right after listening cos they come up thru sewer

that was the first MA album I had heard (heard "Chapel of Ghouls" on Grindcrusher tho) and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Domination is actually a pretty good album that gets shat on for "Where the Slime Live" and Vincent's terrible "WWF wrestler" vocals

I can completely understand why people make fun of Vincent on this album though.

Domination is the album I keep thinking I should go back to but then I'm like "eh why not just listen to Altars or Blessed again"

that's what took me so long to go back to it lol

it's gateways

1000 percent

gateways robbed

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, September 11, 2012 1:06 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

who is here speaking truth eight years ago

Blessed will always be my fav. I lived in that album when i was 13/14

domination btw has always whipped ass

"eyes to see," "nothing but fear," "hatework".... nothing but hits

controversial morbid angel album ranking tk

i need to go back in time to inform my younger self that she should be playing quake on mute while listening to domination all hours of the day

I don’t think I’ve heard a bad Morbid Angel album

they don't tell you that formulas is nearly as good as gateways, but it is

Formulas is dope

I don't like Heretic.

Iliud is hilarious

hateworrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk

every guitar solo on formulas sounds like it's emanating from another dimension

"summoning redemption" is just better than any song ever made

of course i realize, every time i listen to it, that i could say the same thing about any song on gateways

partic "at one with nothing"

idk i think heretic might rule too

it is way more like formulas than it is like gateways though

yeah, Heretic whips ass, but in a low-key platonic ideal 7/10 kind of way.

Hard agree about the solos on Formulas, too, as I've honestly probably listened to the nothing but Trey bonus disc Love of Lava as much as any proper Morbid Angel album over the past few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9-D3iacXK0

this song is incredible. never really given heretic more than a cursory listen bc of its reputation and as usual that was a mistake

all right it's time to listen to illud for the first time since 2011

EXTREME!!!!!

the straight up death metal tracks on illud are very good, and the lol tracks contain numerous lols. profoundly dumb album. sorta glad it exists

relistening to kingdoms disdained makes me suspect i wasn't in the mood for it or even ready for it when it came out

filling in the gaps alphabetically, juvenilia is a not particularly well-recorded live show circa-altars and it's... awesome

gateways
domination
formulas
blessed
heretic
altars
kingdoms
illud

breaks my heart to rank kingdoms so low bc i really can't get enough of that record at the moment, as much as it's a course correction it also resembles no morbid angel record before it, and it is fuckin brutal

but i think i exhausted my allowed quota of trolling opinions by ranking domination and heretic over altars

ahh shit i forgot covenant. telling. even though i love that record

listening to Formulas

I forgot how amazing a song "Heaving Earth" is. how can anybody hate on this shit.

formulas is so dope

would be their best if morbid angel didn’t have five other best albums

i would rank kingdoms disdained higher now. kingdoms disdained rocks ass

i got the "trey azaghoth mix" of that album recently (I guess he did his own mix and is selling it on their bandcamp) and it's actually a bit better! I always liked KD but the production drove me nuts as I had to listen to it on headphones to make it out.

whaAAAaaat i gotta hear this

https://officialmorbidangel.bandcamp.com/album/kingdoms-disdained-raw-mastered-version-mastered-by-trey-azagthoth

the creature on the front of Kingdoms Disdained looks like that one big brown furry thing from Fraggle Rock

i also don't think Tucker is that bad, his growl is a bit forced , but it does have body to it, it's just a bit more generic than Vincent's raspy yell.

Domination I feel like is largely hated for Vincent's terrible vocals, which are now much more over the top and more alt metally.

and yeah, the arrangements are simpler, and they've dumbed down the riffs somewhat at times, but there's a lot of great music on this. still a solid effort.

not every song lands, no, but "Hatework" rules, cheesy keyboards and all.

https://officialmorbidangel.bandcamp.com/album/kingdoms-disdained-raw-mastered-version-mastered-by-trey-azagthoth

― they were written with a ouija board and a rhyming dictionary (Neanderthal), Wednesday, December 29, 2021 10:01 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

finally snagged myself a copy of this and wow the sound is improved by a billion

i can finally hear pretty much everything the guitar is doing!

lol right? it was a strict headphone listen to me for ages because in my car it sounded like nothing but a big loud nonsense, but with this mix I can actually enjoy it in the car now.

I just wanna big-up Brad itt as the primary Gateways backer on ILX, that is def one album that needs more love.

they hinted at this sound on earlier albums, I mean "World of Shit" from Covenant pretty much is the exact same style, they just decided to do a whole album like this.

also Trey's leads are phenomenal, almost all harmonized alien-sounding shits.

on the new tour they're apparently playing 3 from it, including my two favorites ("Summoning Redemption", "Ageless, Still I Am").

playing Heretic for like the first time since maybe 2004, and not sure why I disliked this one so much then. iirc my view was 'it's too much of a generic death metal album', but so far, other than the sterile production, it very much feels like Morbid Angel.

should also note I was not listening to much metal that year so it could have been that i wasn't feeling any DM

granted, I do feel the two Tucker before this are better, buuuut...who cares

I always though Heretic was pretty good and it was more a case of band fatigue, where people were just kind of worn out on their style generally.