Holy. Fucking. Shit. Those were my first three words when I found out the true horror Morbid Angel unleashed with their new album. Now I'm not a big fan of Morbid Angel as all I've listened to from them are Altars of Madness and Blessed are the Sick. I listened to Blessed are the Sick first and this would have been a perfect album had it not been for the pointless instrumental tracks. They don't fit particularly well in a death metal except for maybe the outro sequence in the title track. I feel Altars of Madness lacks variety which is what Blessed are the Sick has which is why I'm more fond with that album than their highly praised debut album. I keep meaning to hear the rest of their albums but the new album came to my attention since not only was it their first album in eight years, it received a huge backlash from fans everywhere when it was leaked. I had to check out how bad it really was and wow, the haters weren't lying when they said this was on the same level as shit as St. Anger and The Unspoken King.
To warm things up, let's look at the album title and the artwork. The title Illud Divinum Insanus is a name that's hard to remember. It's not a name that many will remember and most will say Illud Whatever. Although album titles aren't everything, a name that stands out is ideal when talking about a particular album. As for the album artwork, what the fuck is this? I keep trying to figure out what the mascot on the album cover is meant to be but all I can think of is the bastard child of Satan and Sauron. Still, what is it meant to represent? If there were any signs that this album was going to be a bomb, it should have been the dumbass album artwork and the song name Too Extreme.
If you've not listened to this album (although if you have any interest in the band, you've probably heard some tracks already), you're probably wondering why this album is panned by fans all around. How about we start off with the first track played right after the intro sequence named "Too Extreme!"? Right away you can tell this song is fucking horrendous. The guitars are horribly messed up, the drums are abysmal and industrial elements in my Morbid Angel? Yes folks, Morbid Angel dared to troll their loyal fans with garbage like this. This has often been compared with Rammstein and Marilyn Manson but that is either insulting the said bands in a bad way or is giving this song too much credit, Another thing, this song sounds like it was slowed down but then again, it wouldn't be good if this was played fast. Overall, this song sucks in every single way as already explained asides from the vocals (we'll get to that) and when I thought metal couldn't have a song worse than Metallica's Frantic, I am proven otherwise with this catastrophe.
It's not just the one song that's bad. There's three more tracks that lower themselves to industrial/electronica/techno bullshit. Don't think I'm bashing the songs because I hate those genres since I'm only neutral towards them, I am speaking against these songs because they experiment death metal with the aforementioned genres in an unspeakable fashion. Radikult is a great example of another song done wrong with these experiments. It's slightly more listenable than Too Extreme but it's still a terrible song. It's shocking how this song managed to be seven and a half minutes long. The lyrics are downright pathetic such lines as "We're living hardcore and radical" and the main line "Killa kult" which myself and many interpret as "Kill a cop". Surely that's a good enough reason to rewrite the lyrics. The whole song sounds like the band is trying too hard to be hardcore.
You might be wondering about the other tracks that don't fuck around with techno in death metal. Even the standard death metal tracks are not that great. There may have been some good riffs from them but what makes them really unenjoyable is David Vincent's vocals. He sounds utterly awful and goes beyond the wreckage of Ian Gillan during the recording sessions for Black Sabbath's Born Again. If I never knew Morbid Angel before and heard this album, I'd assume David Vincent was another subpar vocalist like Corey Taylor. Does this band really want to be compared with Slipknot? This was David Vincent's first Morbid Angel in 15 years and this is what he offers us? It's very embarrassing. Even so, at the end these standard tracks either feel like taking the basic guide to write death metal music or are third rate Nile songs (Note: I've only listened to Annihilation of the Wicked from them).
As you can tell, Morbid Angel have not been impressive in the slightest and to have taken eight years just to release this album is a joke. It could have been much less insulting if the band took two years after their last album just to try out an experiment to see if taking a different direction for the band would be good or bad. Yeah, think of Megadeth's Risk. It wasn't like Dave Mustaine returned to the metal scene after a long hiatus with this piece of crap. Sure, Risk was still a bad album but at least it wasn't hyped up to be the next big thing like Illud Divinum Insanus and Dave Mustaine took the safe route with The World Needs a Hero right after. Trey Azagthoth on the other hand, he wants to continue these awful experiments and he even claimed in an interview that one of the leftover ideas is dubstep. Let's just leave it at that.
The biggest slap on the face out of all of this has to be the stupid wooden box promotion for this abomination of an album. It's a horribly expensive piece of shit and I really hate it when bands make these ridiculous offers just for one album. No matter how big of an impact the release of an album may be, there should never be gimmick offers such as these. The wooden box offer comes with the CD, vinyls, a poster and T-Shirt to show the album artwork, two black candles and an incense burner. As you can tell, there are some utterly pointless crap such as the black candles, the incense burner and most of all the goddamn wooden box. Is this garbage designed to make you look like a hardcore Satan worshipper? IT FUCKING DOESN'T, this only makes you look like a fucking idiot! I can enjoy stories based on worshipping Satan but taking it literally is downright moronic. HMV are charging it for £201 and with that money you could buy five new games. I'm not sure whether to sympathize those who wasted so much on this stupid offer or laugh at them for buying this gimmick.
One last thing, whoever is running Morbid Angel's Facebook page is doing everything wrong. To be blocking people who are speaking against the new album because they didn't like it and even making copyright claims on fucking images that were protected under parody is highly bullshit. S/he is speaking for the band here and every musician should take into consideration of what the listeners like and don't like about their music. As for taking down pictures that merely make fun of the new album, that's far more pathetic than Metallica suing Napster.
In conclusion, Illud Divinum Insanus is an abomination to heavy metal and puts a shit stain on the legacy of a big death metal act. The songs that experiment with techno, industrial, electronica or whatever the hell Trey was thinking of are some of the worst metal has offered to date. The standard tracks are uninspiring, David Vincent's vocal styles are pure shit and to hell with that wooden box. Trey Azagthoth may be happy with his new songs but if he really wants to continue this path for the band, he better expect Morbid Angel to become the most hated band since Metallica. Chuck Schuldiner must be rolling in his grave after this travesty made it out alive.
