Underground death metal band Morbid Angel has compiled tracks from a live concert appearance at Nottingham’s Rock City on November 14th, 1989 into a limited 12″ vinyl release entitled Juvenilia.
The recording, of which 1500 copies will be made, will be released on Record Store Day, which falls every year on April 18. If you want a copy in the US, you have to meet up with Morbid Angel bassist/vocalist David Vincent at Waterloo Records in Austin, TX on Saturday, April 18, 2015, beginning at 3 PM.
Cosmic guitarist Trey Azagthoth commented on the title, “”‘Juvenilia’ says it all; works of one’s youth; early works of an artist or author.” Emerging from the hazy days of 1989, these live tracks show Morbid Angel at the time of its first album, Altars of Madness.
Tags: david vincent, morbid angel, record store day, trey azagthoth, waterloo records
Most Morbid Angel’s material save for their second album sucks major cock. Take for instance their 3rd album Covenant, sounds like about a sixth-rate Pleasure to Kill ripoff. That’s really what the riffs are. There’s a lot of single-note repetition riffs… one note eight times, another eight times, etc etc. Apparently this is typical “death metal” riffage… but damn if that doesn’t sound anything like Possessed, Nocturnus, etc etc. This isn’t really an awful album, it is just pretty mediocre. There’s one good song on here (Angel of Disease) and then a lot of songs which are generally similar sounding and all pretty mediocre.
The riffage varies in quality, with some occasionally brilliant ones coming in, but generally they are buried beneath a pretty horrible rhythm-guitar tone that de-emphasises the individual notes and goes for a blurry incoherent sound. Oddly enough, the album goes on it gets better, with the guitar tone clearing itself up slightly on the last few songs compared to the first few.
There are some decent riffs. For example, at 1:57 of “Rapture”. Below that squealing “solo” is a solid midpaced riff. Also, the solos are pretty damn good. That’s the highlight of the album – the lead guitars. But the riffs are just boring as fuck.
Oh and the drumwork – this guy needs to seriously be shot in the head. Do we need a fucking fill every three seconds? I won’t bother to name specific examples, they abound. But, what the Hell – first few seconds of Pain Abound. The drums are far too loud in the mix, and what would be actually a halfway good riff is ruined by the interference – of course the riff at 0.26 is far inferior to the one before it, and is again one of those bad “death metal” type riffs. This wouldn’t be a bad song, except it’s just so… boring. It sounds like a rejected track from Reign in Blood, as it moves forward at the same pace from beginning to end, with the distracting drumbeat underneath.
“Take for instance their 3rd album Covenant, sounds like about a sixth-rate Pleasure to Kill ripoff.” Is it you, Ultraboris? Haha!
I should know better than to feed the obvious troll, but your arrangement comments go out the window for “God of Emptiness.”
I don’t think he is a troll. I agree that Covenant is merely an OK album. Just the last spoils of MA’s early creative boom.
ITS NOT THRASHY ENOUGH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZfWrZFqbI
This > anything Kreator ever did. Sorry.
That’s not to say you don’t make some good points, especially on the production of this album.
Btw, this —> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECpPId4S110
and Pain Divine. Looks like Trey borrowed a riff from the Finns. I don’t blame him. Those kids really had it in them.
Riffage is a really dumb word.
Hence the Ultraboris reference
I WANT MORE THRASH RIFFS DUDE
Sweet, now hopefully we get a KKK album!
(Cue the Malevolent Creation jokes)
I should know better than to feed the obvious troll, but your KKK joke is fucking gay! Malevolent Creation’s weakest album is superior to the wankery drivel your band released as “metal” music.
No way, dude. Malevolent Creation uses blastbeats. The real Ultraboris would turn it off and call it “grindcore monkeyshitfuck” or something to that effect.
“Cosmic guitarist Trey Azagthoth”
Who writes this shit?
The author is called Brett “Dani Filth” Stevens and it is well vilified in the hessiansphere where speed metal means Agent fucking- Steel ! Or early Exciter and some tunes on Deep Purple – Machine Head, as opposed to Metallica which actually is: fucken THRASH METAL.!!!
Sorry to break it to you kids but you just can’t go about renaming the genres as your lord sees fit.
Oh and by the way, just like Mr. Bitterman… I was also banned from Encyclopedia Metallum.
Riffage. A dumb word. The fuck????
Try Death Angel – The Ultra Violence to understand the concept, if you can stop banging your head to manifest a clear thought that is, and if you can… then your not metal and you should have your sack stapled to your forehead instead.
Honestly, I thought Morbid Angel’s next album would be called “Just Kidding About That Whole Illud Divinum Insanus Thing, Guys. Guys?”
The joke’s on us, since Ilud Divinum Insanus probably made more money than all the classic albums of death metal combined. When you have a vast audience of idiots who buy nu-metal and think it’s great, the temptation to chuck out some musical vomit and retire is too much for most musicians. How else do you react to the utter injustice of having Altars of Madness be less recognized than Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Linkin Park, Rob Zombie and Pantera?
The problem is the fans.
That record sold well? Wow.
No.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/morbid-angel-illud-divinum-insanus-first-week-sales-revealed/
Here you can see that Ilud sold 3,600 copies its first week; even Heretic sold 3,900 its first week (31,000 to date). This would make Ilud on par to be MA’s lowest selling album yet. By contrast, Covenant sold over 150,000 and Domination sold 99,000.
Ilud did not pan out because Morbid Angel alienated their death metal fanbase but did not create a new (nu metal) fanbase. The audience for that music is out there but Morbid Angel were not successful in reaching them.
Always thought Morbid Angel were boring.
Overall I agree. However, Altars of Madness and Blessed Are the Sick are two of the best death metal albums, and that’s an objective fact with which I happen to have an opinion aligned.
Morbid Angel is highly interesting because they built Slayer-style discursive songwriting around more circular composition in the Necrovore/Possessed style. Their most imaginative stuff however breaks the mold, but is sometimes forgotten because it isn’t as far out as Demilich or Incantation.
Altars seems to have typically-structured songs but the magic is in the note choice and the placement of rhythmic emphasis, not the number of riff segments and how many times or in what order they are repeated. That’s what takes it above and beyond Possessed and Slayer. It is the final form of speed metal’s evolutionary process; death metal perfected. Sure other bands sounded “weirder” a few years down the road but do they make your heart pound like Altars?
Altars of Madness is one of my favourite death metal albums, but I guess I haven’t “gotten” Blessed are the Sick yet since Gateways is usually my second go-to album of theirs. Really like the slow sound and the lyrics on that one. Will get the Blessed CD out tomorrow and give it another spin.
Gateways sounds like a Soundgarden album. Blessed needs to be listened to front-to-back because the songs are not all as self-contained like Altars. Biggest problem with the album is how damn loud the vocals are over the guitar melodies but that’s a minor complaint.
I disagree with your opinion and dispute the existence of that fact.
Unless you can find me a tribe of pygmies somewhere who agree.
I don’t know any pigmys but I own an entire harem of Asian girls who all agree that Beethoven is superior to Beiber. I rest my case.
Funny how people dispute what is best until the end of time but have little trouble agreeing upon the color of shape of an object. Oh that’s right, that’s because “best” is a subject – like good – and relies on irreducibly individual value judgments.
You have repeated what most people in this society believe.
But “best” takes an object. Best for…? Well, something; an end result.
If you claim a wrench is best for cutting a pie, it’s mental retardation.
Thus you can see that this isn’t subjective either; that’s just the pretense of people who don’t want to admit that their preferences can be stupid.
What are you hiding?
You’re not discussing best in the same context, you’re now dismissing utility. That is distinctly different than the question: what is the best death metal? Try answering the question from that utilitarian perspective, you’ll likely fumble around in your own value judgments about which musical properties best express the subject matter.
I disagree, the classical world was quite clear on the differences between fact and value. It us who muck it up and confuse values for being statements of fact: ie properties of perceiving objects. You can’t demonstrate the goodness of a wrench to another person with an ordinarily functioning set of senses in the same way you can demonstrated its color, texture or shape.
Claiming something is the best death metal begs the question, best according to what? The “what” is always rested upon an individual statement of value: in your case, Brett, it might be phrasal composition or what have you. You value a set of objective musical characteristics. Their presence in a piece of music however does not demonstrate goodness of the music. Their presence merely serve as examples of your individually chosen values.
A person who finds phrasal composition and riff salad to be distasteful is likewise making his or her own individual value judgments. It’s impossible for either party to prove goodness in an objective sense because goodness is a subject. The only thing you have at that point is to agree to disagree or call the disagreeing party names.
If you don’t like riffs, then how about you close the window and go back to pop music or shitty atmospheric black metal played by guys who wish they were in the National?
“You can’t demonstrate the goodness of a wrench to another person with an ordinarily functioning set of senses in the same way you can demonstrated its color, texture or shape. ”
Sure you can.
1. Grab the wrench, a nut and a bolt.
2. Apply the wrench to the nut while holding the bolt.
3. Twist the wrench around while keeping it applied to the bolt.
4. Vocalize the statement: “You see, the wrench is a good tool for applications involving nuts and bolts.”
5. Contemplate the fact that your demonstration would have been much more effective with another person present.
6. Apply the wrench to your own head.
7. The first person to find your body will think, “Wow, a wrench really isn’t the best tool for suicide. This guy had to hit himself in the head 3 or 4 times. If he was still around, I’d suggest that he use a high-caliber handgun for the job instead.”
Indeed: it is the shape which in the case of a wrench dictates its usefulness in cutting pies and turning nuts. And with shapes being easily agreeable upon by persons with functioning senses, one must actively try to ignore the obvious. That is not to say that people actually don’t ignore it, the imagined reasons are many. With more subtle constructions we have to contend with actually understanding the signal our senses receive, but the principle remains the same.
A wrong tool used for the task usually leaves a mess behind, but hey, who are you to judge? I like my pie all mashed up and bolts loose.
You’ve taken the quote out of context. Keep in my the first paragraph I wrote and try again.
Only Scrotal Mesmerism is true. David Vincent is a faggot.
I came here for Sailor Scouts
It’s funny that this album is called Juvenalia; I can’t think of anything more juvenile than recent Morbid Angel