Hordes of Zombies is Terrorizer’s first release since the tragic passing of guitarist Jesse Pintado — but despite the loss, the band hasn’t missed a beat. Hordes of Zombies is an unrelenting, no-bullshit, no gimmicks, ugly, ugly, UGLY tumor of a death-grind album, the kind of release that reminds you why you ever got into the genre in the first place. If the music contained on Hordes of Zombies actually DOES wake the dead and induce them into a mad feeding frenzy, no one should be surprised. Pintado would be proud.

MetalSucks is thrilled to debut the title track from Hordes of Zombies, which you can stream below. We’re confident you’ll agree that it’s easily one of the most merciless releases of 2012 so far. The full album comes out on February 28 via Season of Mist; you can, and should, pre-order it here.

The lo-fi, tasteless, silly, gross, adolescent fantasy that is the cover art for Terrorizer’s upcoming release, Hordes of Zombies, should make you feel all tingly in your no-no spots. It’s exactly the kind of cover art that would make me check out an album regardless of whether or not I already knew who the band were, just because oh fuck yes. It’s a reminder that death metal and grind are the genres that came along and looked at Derek Riggs’ work and said “Neat idea, but the execution is too pretty.” It’s just so… fucking… rad.

Better news still: the isn’t an album by some band I’ve never heard of! It’s an album by Terrorizer! And it is also fucking rad! It’s uncompromisingly ugly and blissfully unaware of any current metal trends. It’s not revolutionary, but it is DTRAP — down to rape and pillage*. It’s like Pete Sandoval’s giant flip of the bird of his sort-of-former bandmates in Morbid Angel, like he’s screaming at them, “How have you forgotten how to do this?!?” 

And now you can hear some of it! ‘Cause Decibel is streaming the track ”Subterfuge.”  If you don’t have fun listening to it, go find an open elevator shaft and fall down it.

Hordes of Zombies comes out February 28 via Season of Mist.

-AR

*Thanks to my friend Jon for teaching me this new variation of “DTF.” I think that it’s much funnier than “DTF,” especially when you actually spell out the last three letters, pronouncing it “D-T-Rap.” Tell your friends!

But I’m not positive. The drummer’s recent comments regarding Illud Divinum Insanus, the first Morbid Angel album he didn’t play on, are kind of hard to interpret. At first he’s all “I don’t play on that album!”, which is really just a clear cut statement of fact, but then they ask him if he’d have done anything different with the record, and here’s why it gets kinda ambiguous:

“More extreme deathgrind metal and less DJ, boring awful typical I care less industrial experimental same as everybody boring bull! This is not what Morbid has been all about!”

So, yeah, geez, I dunno. In some cultures, like the La Tierra de los Opuestos province of Mexico and the town of Mən Demək Deyil Demək in the Republic of Azerbaijan, the words “boring” and “awful” are meant as high compliments. So there’s really a few different ways his comments could be interpreted.

What do you guys think?

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

There’s a fascinating psychology to a true failure of an album. And I’m not talking about how The Sound of White Noise pissed off Belladonna-Anthrax fans or whatever. No, I mean your St. Angers, Cold Lakes, your Unspoken Kings: albums whose defenders are more often than not defending just to be contrary. They’re usually made by bands with some renown and a fan base that — if not sizable — is devoted enough to know a blasphemously awful album when they hear it. There are so many points where the band’s handlers and/or hangers-on could have stopped them and said, “Wait, you’re not being SERIOUS about this, are you?” But either the band were so resolute in their belief that the album was a risk worth taking or were surrounded by a bunch of wincing Yes Men that it still comes into existence anyway, completely un-self-conscious and without a shred of self-awareness. There’s a beauty to those records, albeit a beauty that exists in terrible, regrettable art.

And although Morbid Angel haven’t been immune to Trey Azagthoth’s pretentiousness over the band’s multi-decade career, personally, I didn’t see an album like Illud Divinum Insanus coming down the pipe. Like Cold Lake and The Unspoken King – creative rock-bottom moments for Celtic Frost and Cryptopsy, respectively — it’s ill-calculated to an unfathomable degree. But unlike those albums, which on top of being terrible had a whiff of being sell-out moves (hair metal for Celtic Frost, mall-grade deathcore for Cryptopsy), Illud Divinum Insanus is a passion project for Azagthoth and Dave Vincent (back in the band for the first time on record since Domination). This is an incredibly personal record that they’ve decided to hang the Morbid Angel name on– a name that’s not just sacred in death metal but among the most respected in metal as a whole- – and have subsequently turned the band from a name synonymous with greatness to a name immediately followed with the statement “Just stick with their older stuff” if mentioning them to the uninitiated. Illud Divinum Insanus isn’t just terrible: it’s magnificently dreadful. If the last Six Feet Under album is a mentally ill guy holding a cardboard “REPENT” sign on the street, the new Morbid Angel record is that guy who cashed out his pension to buy ad space for the “THE WORLD IS ENDING ON MAY 21, 2011” hysteria.

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It’s bizarre and unreal to contemplate a new Morbid Angel record without famed drummer Pete Sandoval, the eenventer of deh blazt beit. Even onetime Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal gave it a passing mention last week to Axl and I in our interview. But alas, the drums on the forthcoming Illud Divinum Insanus are the domain of Tim Yeung and his excellent hair, though we can be reasonably certain of Sandoval’s involvement in some measure. Whatever, cuz Morbid’s radness is evident in Amazon’s clip of new jam “Nevermore” regardless of the absence of their ace skinsman. The shit JAMS — all 30 seconds of it. Now, the clip listed as the Combichrist remix of “Destructos Vs. The Earth” on the other hand …

–ADF

Morbid Angel’s Illud Divinum Insanus comes out June 7 on Season of Mist. Fuck yes.

Thanks to tipster Ashley Lee!

Hard to believe that there hasn’t been a new Morbid Angel album during the history of MetalSucks, but we’re finally getting one this summer. It’s called Illud Divinum Insanus, which, according to this dorky Latin message board (you really can find anything on the internet), a) means “that divine, insane thing,” and b) is poorly conjugated (apparently it should be insanum, not insanus). And I know that there are people who are bummed that Pete Sandoval doesn’t play on the album (the always-excellent Tim Yeung, finally freed from the constraints of Divine Heresy, has stepped in for Sandoval, who is still recovering from back surgery), but this the first album to feature David Vincent since Domination, so, y’know, ya take the good ya take the bad ya take ‘em both and there have the new Morbid Angel album.

ANYWAY, here’s the album artwork. I have almost no idea what the crap is going on, but I’m digging it anyway.

And here’s the art for the first single, “Nevermore,” which I actually think is even cooler than the album art. I guess “hands” are going to be a big theme here…

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Last month, I got the following e-mail from reader Ceth Carter, regarding the fact that Tim Yeung is currently operating as the drummer for Morbid Angel while Pete Sandoval recovers from surgery:

“Do you think its possible to have a real Morbid Angel album without Sandoval? I know David Vincent and Steve Tucker have been back and forth and it has worked in both cases and even Erik Rutan has been in and out but I can’t imagine a Morbid Angel record without Trey Azagtoth or Pete. Tim Yeung is as amazing as they come on drums but it doesn’t sound right. Any insight on this?????”

Well, Ceth, I know how Sergeant D. feels about Sandoval, but, no, I do not have any insight on this. However, I do have the below video of Yeung playing a new Morbid Angel song at a drum clinic recently. So maybe you could watch it and see what you think? It sounds pretty promising to these old ears, but I think you have a lot more invested in this emotionally than I do.

Soooo… what do we think?

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

In any band, there’s usually one member who’s the driving force behind the group, and carries the other guys: Greg Ginn, Les Claypool, Justin Timberlake… you get the idea. Such is the case with death metal legends Morbid Angel — the whole band essentially stands on the shoulders of one member, but it’s not the one most of you dorks are thinking of. Lettuce be reality, brahs: Pete Sandoval’s drumming is the definition of mediocre (and before you start arguing, remember that trusted, mainstream news outlets such as NPR have recognized me as an authority on metal drumming).

File this under “sacred cow barbecue” if you want, but I’ve finally come to terms with the truth about Morbid Angel: they have their moments, but are held back by Pete Sandoval’s dull, unimaginative playing (and consistently bad drum sounds). I’m not saying Pete is a bad drummer, because he certainly isn’t, but I am saying that his playing is several orders of magnitude behind Trey Azagthoth’s, and that the bad would be approximately 1 zillion times better if they had someone else on drums.

U MAD?? See if you don’t change your mind after the break…

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This is a follow up to Vince’s blog on drum triggers. I’m with him.

There’s definitely a misconception out there that to trigger is to cheat. I’ll get this out of the way early: triggers are like any other tool. You can use them correctly, or not. Water can be used to give life or drown a person. Triggers can be used in a musical way for a style that demands them or they can be used to cover up a shitty drummer’s inability to hit consistently or like a man (no offense to all you female drummers out there).

Click to read more…

Thanks to Cosmo Lee at Invisible Oranges for pointing out that today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Morbid Angel’s historic debut, Altars of Madness. As Lee notes, “Morbid Angel weren’t kings of death metal yet. Altars of Madness was the beginning of their coup.” My personal favorite Angel album, Domination, was still six years away. But it’s impossible to ignore the importance of this release to the death metal genre.

After the jump, watch nine out of the ten songs on the record, as filmed for the Live Madness ’89 concert film that captures the band performing just months after the album’s release. Live Madness is also available as a DVD that was included Altars‘ 2006 re-release.

-AR

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