After a far too long 13 year wait, one of hell’s favourite metal bands Morbid Angel are back from the unholy hellfire down under to err… tour down under. The Metro was chock-full of fans young & old, eager for what was many, their first fleshy taste of Morbid Angel. Their eclectic brand of metal is neither metalcore, deathcore, grindcore or whatever-core, but their own complex technical blend of the many metal subgenres. Or let’s just keep it simple and refer to them as a highly influential metal band, complete with the usual themes of war, social decay and anti-religion. Either way, it’s brutal!
The set focused strongly on their first 4 killer albums – Alters Of Madness, Blessed Are The Sick, Covenant & Domination. Unfortunately, one of their technically and artistically more entertaining albums, Formulas Fatal To The Flesh (okay, that’s one more for the metal geeks) was just represented by the single track Bil Ursag. I guess you can’t have everything.
In the end, it mattered not – Morbid Angel put on a show for the ages, with more riffs and headbanging than 10 Slayer albums! Or at least 6 anyway… And Trey Azagthoth (vocals/guitars) came across as friendly guy, giving us some out-back-with-the-bbq banter in between the barrage of mighty fine twisted death metal. With Dave Vincent (bass) returning to the team (whoops, I didn’t know he’d been gone – for 8 years!) and new member Destructhor (guitar) and the brilliance of Pete Sandoval (drums) they combine, Transformers style into Morbid-bot!
Perhaps Michael Bay should’ve considered using Morbid Angel in his latest brain-dead masterpiece. I can easily imagine Optimus Prime and his crew rockin’ out to some Morbid Angel. Then again, it’s probably more of a Decepticon sound, the Autobots probably listed to Coldplay…
The ball-busting blast of Dominate was nothing like Coldplay, and the wildly riffing Rapture and Pain Devine was spine chilling. And Immortal Rites! Damn baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout! What a dream setlist with World of Shit, God of Emptiness (a personal fave), Sworn To The Black, and Dawn Of The Angry, while special mention must go the doom-laden epic Where The Slime Live. This review cannot do justice to that song.
Morbid Angel also gave us a gift in the form of a new song – Nevermore. It was a pretty funky beat-heavy piece of metal chunkiness and a real tease for their new album. With this new album in the works, can we look forward to another Morbid Angel Australian tour in the near future? Get out your ouija boards/ tarot cards / pray to the flying spaghetti monster, and let me know. I’ll be there.
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