Morbid Angel – Illud Divinum Insanus

Eight years have passed from the last Morbid Angel release (Heretic) and it was about time to come up with a record more dancing, more shiny, with beats from hell and “sickening” tunes that makes you wanna cry for the promising bleak future… It seems that the letter “I” is the one that brings something new but way more bellow Morbid Angels occult death metal standards.

I won’t talk about evolution and all this kind of bullshit that I heard these days about “Illud”, but I have to remind to some of you that we are talking about Morbid fucking Angel not about Marilyn Manson or about a new drum ‘n’ bass/gothic/uplifting band.

Many people were requesting the glorious return of David Vincent,  I won’t judge your beliefs and your thoughts but I have one question for all of you: “In your opinion, Steve Tucker couldn’t fulfill the vox duties for Morbid, do you think that he wasn’t good enough and his overall performance for the band?”. In this point of the review I have to make something clear, David is not completely responsible about the new creation of Morbid Angel. Don’t forget that Trey is in charge and that he has the biggest share of responsibility, cause he is the true vital part of the Morbid Angel and secondly he should know the demands of fans. Music evolution is something that cannot cope with Morbid Angels glorious past. When you have released killer albums such as: Blessed Are The Sick, Covenant, Altars Of Madness and later with Tucker on vox: Formulas Fatal To The Flesh you have at least to show some respect in your past. If you want of course the future to show you some respect also..

And here we are, Anno 2011, with the first Vincent studio album since 1995. We’ve all heard the new song, “Nevermore”, live by now and it sounded promising. The first hint of suspicion, however, quickly arose when Amazon.co.uk uploaded 30sec. preview of each song for the promotion of the new record.I have to admit that my reaction was: “What the f*ck is going on…” and of course I was begging for a “promotional” joke… I don’t wanna tire you with personal thoughts but I am sure that every fan of Morbid Angel has made this kind of thoughts. “Illud Divinum Insanus” which is entitled the new record has nothing to offer with its sterile music and moreover there are no occult death metal elements of course… We are talking about a failure comeback (at least in my eyes) after 8 years of silence. No inspiration, no Pete “Commando” Sandoval (back surgery) , no slime lives… 11 uninspiring successors that cannot be compared with the old ones.

I hope for the releases to come, to have the return of the ancient ones and to rejoin to the slimy paths of the occult death metal that Morbid Angel invented cause its too pity to witness from now the “ending” of a such a great band… All hail the Morbid ancients ones…

Standout tracks: “Existo Vulgoré”

For maniacs the record is released in the following formats:
– Wooden foldout box
– Metal starpak CD (outside North America)
– Deluxe digipak CD (North America only)
– Double gatefold LP with download card
– Jewel case CD
– Digital download