365 Days of Metal: WTF Wednesday, Can We Go Back to 1989?

Day 88

Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus

Band Origin: Tampa, Florida, USA

Genre: Death Metal / Industrial (unfortunately)

Label: Season of Mist

Running Time: 57 minutes

Release Date: June 7, 2011

Best Part: Putting on Altars of Madness and forgetting this album even exists.

Favorite Tracks: N/A

Grade: 1.0

--------- 

Ilud Divinum Insanus in way more than 20 words or less:

Morbid Angel returns after eight years with an album that should have come out four years earlier, and may have benefited from it, as the end result is something that has left longtime fans running for the hills - or for their shotguns. 

The Band:

Morbid Angel is a four piece death metal band from Tampa, Florida and is one of the oldest, most successful and influential bands in the history of the genre. Their highly technical style carried forward by the guitar work of Trey Azagthoth and drummer Pete Sandoval were pivotal in creating the sound that would help carry the band forward, and the genre death metal forward from its earlier more thrash driven roots. Original vocalist and bassist David Vincent would leave the group after 1996, and a string of very successful releases, only to return to the band in 2004. It would take eight years for the band to deliver its next record, which was supposed to be released in 2007 but continued to be pushed back due to touring and writing new material.

Morbid Angel's previous releases include: Altars of Madness (1989), Blessed Are the Sick (1991), Covenant (1993), Domination (1995), Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (1998), Gateways to Annihilation (2000), and Heretic (2003)

Jay's Take on Ilud Divinum Insanus:

For a band that has arguably one of the best guitarists in death metal history, is the third best-selling death metal band in the United States, only behind Cannibal Corpse and Deicide, and is the owner of the best-selling death metal album of all time with Covenant, it's hard to think that Morbid Angel could really go in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, Illud Divinum Insanus did just that. 

Illud Divinum Insanus received a real mixed bag of reviews which dangled between praise and absolute loathing. The heavier of the balance of those reviews were on the negative end of the spectrum, and were most loudly heard through longtime fans of the band - myself included. The fact of the matter is Illud Divinum Insanus does an about face on the style that fans have come to know and love, and incorporates a more industrial element to parts of the album that sounds both forced, and just doesn't sit well in comparison with their prior albums. The album does have its good moments, with Azagthoth and session drummer Tim Yeung pounding through some heavy and technical passages which sounded as if they came from the cutting room floor of their previous release Covenant from eight years prior. But once again, it's the full package that really influences how I feel about this record. And as I mentioned when I named this album the biggest letdown of the year, it feels like that over the near 10 year gap between recordings that they forgot what band they were in. Since first listening through Illud Divinum Insanus I've played through the record maybe a total of two other times, and have yet to find any real replay value in comparison to their older, and much greater recordings.

Sample of the Day:

While there are a couple of tracks on the album, like Nevermore which are quite alright, you then get tracks like Too Extreme which show off that Industrial style that makes Illud Divinum Insanus sound like an enema gone wrong.





- J