Morbid Angel - "Illud Divinum Insanus", 2011

With charismatic frontman David Vincent back in the fold since 2004, the audience expected another pure death metal masterpiece that could stand alongside the first four classics, especially after the Steve Tucker-fronted era ended unceremoniously with the mediocre, directionless "Heretic" record. It took the band several years to come up with a new album, so expectations kept growing, particularly after a few successful tours proved that the unit was still in fine form, with the reassimilated Vincent delivering the goods fiercely and a new rhythm guitar player, Destructhor (a Norwegian formerly of Myrkskog and Zyklon), completing the lineup alongside Trey Azagthoth and Pete Sandoval. After eight long years, the new album finally dropped... along with the balls of thousands of fans.

It's well known that "Illud Divinum Insanus" went down in history as one of the most controversial death metal releases ever due to its poorly received industrial metal influences and experimental nature, but if you had followed the band since the 1990s, the industrial/electro fixation of both Azagthoth and Vincent was old news. In fact, the band had already flirted with the idea as early as 1994 with the “Laibach Remixes” EP; on “Domination,” the song “Hatework” and its martial orchestrations suggested that the band was open to unexpected experiments with different musical styles; odd instrumentals even appeared randomly throughout the Tucker albums; and the two leaders openly voiced their appreciation for techno, electronica, and similar styles in interviews several times over the years, with Vincent even occasionally playing with his ex-fiancée’s band Genitorturers.

When “Illud…” tanked and the band’s reputation took a dive, however, Azagthoth quickly shifted his stance, essentially blaming Vincent for the situation, which led to the frontman leaving the band to form I Am Morbid (and later Vltimas), while Trey once again asked Steve Tucker to step in and save the day. Sandoval wisely bowed out even before the recording sessions for “Illud Divinum Insanus,” citing health issues, and never came back.

This is to say that while many fans identified Vincent as solely responsible for the debacle, Azagthoth was guilty as well; he is credited as co-writer on several of the incriminated tracks on the album. Pursuing an experimental direction was a shared, deliberate choice by the duo, and these are facts.

The main problem with the record isn’t the experimentation per se; that could have been considered a legitimate, though questionable, choice, and maybe it could have been intriguing if done properly. The real problem is that the album lacks flow and stylistic direction; it feels like a collection of songs written and recorded during different sessions. The industrial metal songs, four out of eleven, feel disconnected from the rest of the record and would have belonged on an EP released separately or relegated to bonus tracks at best. It’s not a death metal record with industrial metal influences; instead, it consists of 50% death metal songs, 40% industrial metal songs, and 10%—huh?—weird stuff, for lack of a better term. The genres rarely gel on the record and are mostly treated as separate entities.

The band made a naive miscalculation with “Illud Divinum Insanus”: if they had focused on delivering a pure death metal record in the band’s classic style, nobody would have cared if they later took the liberty of releasing another one-off record featuring industrial remixes, unreleased electro/techno tracks, and whatnot; it would have been a win-win situation. Interestingly, the band put out a double album of remixes in 2012, titled—unimaginatively—"Illud Divinum Insanus – The Remixes,” which makes a lot more sense: it’s a relatively fun listen, and many of the remixes of those same tracks actually sound better than the original album versions, especially when they ditch the forced metal elements and focus entirely on electronics/EBM. 

That said, even taken on their own, the four industrial songs on the record are not very successful. The oddly titled “Too Extreme!” is a hardcore/techno-inspired experiment with noisy guitars and effects and Vincent shouting rather weird lyrics, including several lines in Spanish. It's a nearly unbearable ordeal that goes on for over six minutes, and it does not make any sense, especially as an album opener, coming after the Imperial March-like intro “Omni Potens.”

The other three songs at least display a slightly more solid structure. “De Profundis - Mea Culpa” is a chaotic, ultra-fast electro–extreme metal track that almost resembles certain material by Italian outfit Aborym; “Radikult” is a groovy industrial rocker that sounds as if Vincent joined Marilyn Manson on vocals (though it does feature a tasty guitar solo), while “Destructos vs. the Earth / Attack” relies on sludgy guitars and martial rhythms to convey the concept of an alien retaliation, resulting in the most convincing song of the lot, although it's still too lengthy. On a side note, I prefer the Combichrist remix of it that appeared as a B-side to the “Nevermore” 7-inch single.

If you survive these tracks, you are rewarded with the death metal side of the album, and it's safe to say that the material is far better than anything heard on “Heretic,” as well as most of what would come later on “Kingdoms Disdained.” I'll go so far as to say that, if there were more songs in this vein, I might have liked it more than "Gateways to Annihilation," which I thought was good but a bit too sludgy. The ferocious "Existo Vulgoré" would have been a fantastic album opener, while "Blades for Baal" and "Nevermore" aren't far behind in intensity and memorable riffs, resembling the classic Morbid Angel style that every old-school fan of the band expected. Tim Yeung, filling in for Sandoval, blasts away with unbridled brutality and anchors the mid-tempo sections with killer double-kick layers, adapting to the band's sound effortlessly. David Vincent sounds as charismatic and powerful as on "Covenant" or "Domination," while remaining perfectly intelligible—unlike many of his younger peers—and occasionally adding deep, clean baritone choirs to keep things varied. Destructhor is a solid, precise player, while Trey's guitar solos are as imaginative and virtuosic as ever.

"Beauty Meets Beast" offers a slower-paced, more epic shift in style, while the crushing groove of "10 More Dead" leads to a sudden speed-up that recalls an old classic such as "World of Shit," resulting in another outstanding track. The only oddity in an otherwise excellent batch of death metal songs is “I Am Morbid,” which basically sounds like a very heavy hard rock song with downtuned guitars and Vincent’s typical vocals. Someone might call it death ’n’ roll, and it’s actually not too far removed from what Gorefest did on albums such as “Soul Survivor” and “Chapter 13.” Starting from the song title, it seems to be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek moment, not to be taken too seriously, although on an album that already desperately needed more death metal songs, it feels like another missed opportunity.

The album's production is crisp and clear, although the mix feels slightly inconsistent at times, mainly because the drums were recorded at different studios depending on the track. The death metal material sounds fine, if a bit sterile, with heavily triggered drums and guitars that sound like plugins. It’s a long way from the analog, meat-and-potatoes production of a raw album like “Formulas Fatal to the Flesh,” but it continues the modern shift that began with “Gateways to Annihilation” onward. While a little generic, "Illud.." still sounds better than “Heretic,” which sounded like it was recorded at home on cheap computer equipment.

The bummer with “Illud Divinum Insanus” is that it could have been a very good late Morbid Angel record if the band had decided to forgo the silly experimentation and instead made an effort to write five more worthy death metal songs. As it is, it’s a similar situation to Bathory’s “Destroyer of Worlds”: it features enough songs for a great EP, while the rest of the material is completely off, doesn’t fit within the band’s legacy, and is largely mediocre on its own.

Despite all of this, it’s probably the last time the band tried to come up with something creative, and Vincent certainly could have brought more to the table as a vocalist and songwriter if he had stayed, regardless of what went wrong on this album. After all, he went on to release notable music with the two Vltimas records, while Azagthoth and Tucker played it safe on "Kingdoms Disdained." Sadly enough, in recent years the band seemed to slowly disappear behind Trey's erratic behavior, and its future looks more uncertain than ever.

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