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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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

The only other time Decibel put Morbid Angel on the cover was our fifth issue, in March of 2005. David Vincent had just answered our dark prayers, returning to the fold to “focus on putting together a really brutal tour featuring classic Morbid Angel tracks.” That was radical enough, but what everybody was really rabid for was a new Vincent/Azagthoth collaboration, the first since ’95’s Domination. Predictably, Trey didn’t have much of a scoop for us: “We’re just taking this day by day. It takes so long to put an album together. I don’t think I’m at that point yet.”

Suffice it to say, it took him fucking long enough to get to that point. And in just under two weeks, if you’re not a metal journalist or friend of the band, you’ll finally get a thorough overview of what Tampa’s finest have been slaving away on: the deeply polarizing eighth album, Illud Divinum Insanus. And you’ll learn soon enough if your perspective mirrors the majority of those who have already heard it (mass facepalm) or if Azagthoth’s notorious experimental daring has paid off yet again. J. Bennett grills both principals and gets a pretty fascinating explanation for the startling new direction. It’s the big story in July’s dB, available in the webstore now, for subscribers within two weeks. This one doesn’t have a gushing Mars Volta review (sorry, J.), so it’s an improvement on multiple levels!

-AB

Decibel’s July 2011 issue also features Baroness, Coroner, Autopsy, Revocation, Wormrot, an incredible article about album packaging, and an awesome flexi disc of The Black Dahlia Murder covering Carcass’ “This Mortal Coil” with Jeff fucking Walker. That issue is available here, but why not get a full subscription to ensure you never miss one?

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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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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As you may have read on Blabbermouth by now, Trey Azagthoth has posted a lengthy State of the Metal address on his MySpace page. It’s long and it’s a lot to digest, but I’ve posted the entire thing after the jump. Given Azagthoth’s already-secure place in metal history, I think it’s worth pondering what he has to say seriously (As opposed to just saying “Azagthoth rules!” or “Morbid Angel is for fags!” or whatever other pithy statements to which the peanut gallery might resort). Okay, here we go:

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