Morbid Angel is elite death metal and has been the standard for as long as I can remember. They have defined death metal for listeners of the genre for decades, influenced all of the great bands to come out of the genre after them, and have been away for 8 long years. 2003’s Heretic was not the best record they’d ever produced, this is most certainly true. But there was no reason not to believe after hearing “Nevermore,” the single that was released ahead of time, that the return of David Vincent would usher in the kind of catastrophic reaction that has ensued. I make it my business to never read reviews of any record before I write my own review, hell, I haven’t even read Steel Druhm’s (which is below this one) of this record. But it was hard to miss the fury, anger and disappointment that has been floating around the ether. I had to ask myself “could it really possibly be this bad?” You see, I’m a stalwart defender of some pretty hated records (most notably Iron Maiden’s The X Factor and Mayhem’s Grand Declaration of War), and I try to listen to every record with a clean slate. And I attempted to do so with this record, as well.
