The sighs of disappointment can be heard from here to Hell. The mighty Morbid Angel, Florida's answer to all fevers and plagues, return with arrogant devil king David Vincent at the helm, and yet the fans are heckling, in fact they are stoning the idol in disgust. The horror is that despite the gap between Vincent-fronted albums, MA have returned with a less than invigorating sound, one which is using all too many industrial samples and completely losing its fan base, despite the occasional twisted riff of Azagthoth still finding its way among the withering coils. Naturally, Vincent's voice lacks the menace of the early classics, but the record as a whole is so bereft of malevolence and swagger, that this return is even more disappointing than that of Pestilence. Without a shadow of a doubt 'Illud...' is one of metal's biggest disappointment's that can only be rectified by the band running back to the studio, because this record is not much heavier than a Rob Zombie record, displaying all too many attempts at experimentation, which at once destroys any hopes we may have had of a death metal classic. The decent stuff is few and far between, 'Nevermore', a track which many have known about for a while, misleads us into thinking this is another twisted record of carnage riffing, but no, steadily the records declines, littered with techno excrement that doesn't even have the ability to challenge the mildly intense industrial bands - in fact it's as if the band have no love for death metal, instead injecting their deathly veins with watered down blast beats and the like. there is nothing here that invokes Satan, in fact I'm sure he left the building years ago, knowing full well this alleged return of the titan would crumble to ash.The fact that Morbid Angel have gone groove-based isn't the only horrendous ingredient, the biggest shock is how timid this record really is, reeking of an ego that has disappeared up its own cavernous arsehole. Whatever the band members are listening to of a night should not reflect on the fact that Morbid Angel used to be a pulverising death metal band, but incorporating a hip-hop beat here, and an almost nu-metal groove there, is simply blasphemy. Those who find this record even half-decent deserve to be crushed under the rock these guys recorded this opus. Slipknot fans may hear this and set up a mosh pit of personal issues, but death metal fans will be reaching for the exit, and by the time 'Radikult' has puked its final dance beat, the area will be a ghost town of caretaker's and event staff, sweeping up the piles of shit from the stage that were thrown at the band. This really is a bad record, a record that pushes the riffs to the back, in favour of some kind of cyber-rock darkness, the type of cold, boring sound that was injected into the black metal scene a few years back. Fans are setting fire to their vinyl and cd's rapidly, and the band must surely take not at such actions, but it wouldn't surprise me if Vincent and co' produce another lump of this puerile crap just as a middle-finger gesture, but that's fine by me, because when they churn this excrement out live, not only is it going to give the classic cuts a band name, but I'm hoping that fans of any sense will be walking out the door. This is NOT Morbid Angel, this is not how to experiment within your genre, and lyrically it's offensive in that it's so poor. The thousands of negative reviews on the internet speak for themselves, but if you don't believe how bad this is, just try and steal it from somewhere because it's not worth the paper it's printed on.
I'm interested to see where MA go from here....I'm thinking the dustbin. Rest In Peace, you're lucky to get a '3.5'.
3.5/10
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