Morbid Angel
| Morbid Angel | |
|---|---|
 |
|
 Morbid Angel (2008) |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Death metal |
| founding | 1984 (as Heretic) 1984 (renamed Morbid Angel) |
| Website | http://www.morbidangel.com/ |
| Founding members | |
| Dallas Ward (until 1985) | |
| Trey Azagthoth | |
Drums , vocals |
Mike Browning (until 1986) |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, bass |
Steve Tucker (1996-2001, 2003-2004, since 2015) |
Electric guitar, studio keyboard |
Trey Azagthoth |
| former members | |
singing |
Kenny Bamber (1985) |
Vocals, bass |
David Vincent (1986-1996, 2004-2015) |
Electric guitar |
Richard Brunelle (1985–1993, Live: 1998, † 2019) |
Electric guitar |
Erik Rutan (tour: 1993, 1994–1996, 1999–2002, tour: 2006) |
Electric guitar |
Thor Anders "Destructhor" Myhren (2008-2015) |
bass |
Sterling Scarborough (1986) |
bass |
John Ortega (1986) |
Drums |
Wayne Hartzel (1986–1988) |
Drums |
Pete Sandoval (1988-2010) |
Drums |
Tim Yeung (2010-2015) |
| Live support | |
Vocals, bass |
Jared Anderson (Live: 2001-2002, † October 14, 2004) |
Electric guitar |
Tony Norman (Tour: 2003-2005) |
Morbid Angel is an American death metal - band from Florida . Originally it was supposed to be called Heretic , but due to a name conflict with an already existing power metal band, the founders decided on Morbid Angel. The band is one of the co-founders of Florida Death Metal .
history
Founding years
After graduating from high school , guitarist George Emanuel III founded. with a “boy from the neighborhood” who is unknown by name on drums and his friend Dallas Ward on bass, the band Heretic. Shortly thereafter, the drummer was replaced by Mike Browning, who had already played with Emanuel at school in the school band Ice. When the band discovered that there was already a power metal band called Heretic , the band changed the name to Morbid Angel:
“The name came to me in 1984. [...] Of course, we needed a cool logo and T-shirts straight away - an image. We also wanted to get something like a message across. For me it was the magic of real life and the idea of being spiritual. "
Emanuel III, who had meanwhile adopted the pseudonym Trey Azagthoth, and Mike Browning were responsible for the music. While the duo tried to combine different styles between Mercyful Fate and Slayer in the music, occult and satanic influences, especially from the Necronomicon , flowed into the lyrics . The trio was able to engage Kenny Bamber as a singer for a short time, with whom they recorded some pieces in a recording studio. Bamber, who was a lot older than the other band members, paid for the studio recordings, but had to leave the band a short time later because they were not satisfied with his falsetto pitch. A few weeks later, while bassist Ward temporarily took over the vocals, Richard Brunelle joined the band as rhythm guitarist . After Ward also had to leave the band, Sterling Scarborough was taken on as bassist, followed by John Ortega. The demos Scream for Blasphemies and Bleed for the Devil were created in this line-up .
In early 1986, through a mutual friend of Mike Browning's, contact was made with David Vincent , who ran a small independent label called Goreque Records in Charlotte (North Carolina) . In April 1986 Morbid Angel recorded Abominations of Desolation , the album would be their debut . However, there were some differences of opinion and incidents between Azagthoth and Browning, so that the publication planned for September 1986 was rejected again. Azagthoth and Brunelle then excluded Browning and Ortega from the band, whereupon David Vincent suggested that Morbid Angel continue with his drummer Wayne Hartzel in Charlotte. The quartet's music got faster and harder and the image also changed:
“I was only 19. Trey and I was totally crazy about occultism and splatter movies. We did everything to shock people, we wanted to attract attention. It wasn't just about the music. "
Because of their extreme music and the stage show - Azagthoth and Brunelle slashed their arms with razor blades - the band became better known in the underground . Fascinated by albums like Napalm Deaths Scum , they adapted blastbeats to their music. In 1987 they recorded the three pieces of the demo Thy Kingdom Come , two of which appeared on the Swiss label Splattermaniac Records in 1988 on the single of the same name . In the summer of that year, drummer Hartzel went into hiding and was replaced by Pete Sandoval from Terrorizer . Through the intercession of Mick Harris , the band was signed by Earache Records in 1989 and released their debut album Altars of Madness in late 1989 . In winter the band went on the Grindcrusher Tour with Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower and Carcass .
Commercial win
Death Metal celebrated considerable success, especially in the USA, Morbid Angel became one of Earache's best-selling bands. In July 1991 the label released Blessed Are the Sick and in September of the same year Abominations of Desolation . The latter contained the tracks recorded in 1986 in the original sound and exactly the version in which the LP was to appear in 1986. The album, which was never originally planned for an official release, was only put on by Earache because a few months before bootleg LPs appeared with the complete recordings, which apparently came from an advance tape by John Ortega and were pressed onto a record by an Italian. In 1991, the band manager Günter Ford began discussions with several US major labels and was the interest of Irving Azoff, founder of Warner - sublabels wake Giant Records. In the spring of 1992 the band signed a deal with Giant / Warner for North America, the European distribution was still with their label Earache. This made Morbid Angel the first death metal band to be signed by a major label. The contract initially only ran for one album with the option of five more. Richard Brunelle left the band in 1993, which now continued to play with Azagthoth as the only guitarist. In 1993 the third studio album Covenant was released in Europe through Earache and in North America through Giant / Warner, making it the first major label release by a death metal band. The sales of the album met Warner's expectations, so this album can be described as the band's commercial breakthrough. In 1994 Morbid Angel released the EP Laibach Remixes , on which Morbid Angel's tracks were remixed by Janex Krizaj under the supervision of the band Laibach and 300,000 different riots were produced by the Laibach side project. The next studio album, Domination, followed in May 1995 , which sold around 70,000 copies in the US alone and around 200,000 copies worldwide. The line-up now also included a second guitarist, Erik Rutan . Despite the success with the albums, David Vincent left the band in mid-1996:
“There were things that I was unhappy with that weren't necessarily related to the band. [...] I had reached a point where I just couldn't go on in the same rut. "
“At that point, I was pretty disappointed with some of his ideas […] I always thought Dave was a great musician, but the spiritual and ritual side of the music was also very important to me. And Dave just wasn't really behind that. "
The live album Entangled in Chaos , released in May 1996 and recorded during the Domination tour, was also the last with David Vincent as the singer.
A replacement was found for Vincent in Steve Tucker (ex- Ceremony ) and in 1998 Formulas Fatal to the Flesh was published . The contract with Warner had meanwhile ended, so that the album was released exclusively by Earache. The lyrics of the songs were partly written in Sumerian , the Fs in the title each stand for the sixth letter of the alphabet and thus for the number 666 . Azagthoth wanted to suggest "a new spiritualism" and tried to interpret it from New Age authors like Tony Robbins or Deepak Chopra .
The 2000s
On the album Gateways to Annihilation released in 2000 Steve Tucker worked for the first time on the compositions. After the extensive touring, Tucker left the band due to exhaustion. Jared Anderson from Hate Eternal was on the microphone for the rest of the live shows. In mid-2002 Erik Rutan left Morbid Angel to concentrate fully on his new band Hate Eternal . The remaining duo Azagthoth / Sandoval spent the rest of the year composing pieces for a new album, with Stricken Arise Pete Sandoval contributed a song to a Morbid Angel album for the first time. At Azagthoth's request, singer and bassist Steve Tucker also returned to the band, and the next studio album, Heretic, was recorded in this line-up and released in 2003. The American Heretic Tour followed in autumn and the European Heretic Tour in spring 2004 . After the tour, Steve Tucker left the band again and David Vincent returned for the South American tour in summer 2004. In August 2004, the band announced on their website that they had separated from their long-time record label Earache. This was followed by the Masters of Chaos World Tour (2005/2006) and a Summer Festival Tour (2006) with appearances at Wacken Open Air , Sziget and Summer Breeze . For the 2008 tours Destructhor was hired by Zyklon as session guitarist, followed by tours through Australia and New Zealand . The band, which has not been signed to any record label since separating from Earache, signed a record deal with the French label Season of Mist in November 2009 , and the release of their ninth studio album has been announced for 2010. However, this was only published in June 2011 with the title Illud divinum insanus . Previously, the single for the song Nevermore was released on the B-side with a Combichrist remix of another song from the album . The album itself also shows influences from electronic music .
In 2013 there was a special Covenant tour on which the entire album was played. In December 2013, David Vincent announced that Pete Sandoval was no longer a member of the band because he became a devout Christian and this was incompatible with the band.
In June 2015 it was announced that David Vincent and Tim Yeung had left the band and that Steve Tucker would join the band. However, David Vincent stated that he had neither left the band nor had he been asked to leave. However, Tim Yeung announced that he was leaving of his own free will. Only a few days later, Thor Anders "Destructhor" Myhren announced his departure from the band. In the same year Vincent founded the black death metal band Vltimas with former Mayhem guitarist Rune "Blasphemer" Eriksen and cryptopsy drummer Flo Mounier , which released their debut album in March 2019 (both musicians had previously worked with Steve Tucker in worked together on the Nader Sadek project). Since 2017, Scott Fuller on drums and Dan Vadim Von on second guitar have again completed the group, which released their 10th studio album Kingdoms Disdained in December of the same year .
image
In the early 1990s, death metal was one of the most popular subcultures of the metal scene , which led to the rise of black metal ; While the Swedish and Norwegian black metal scene in particular rejected death metal as “trend” and “commerce”, the band was also assigned to black metal due to its satanic background and, alongside Deicide, was one of the few death metal bands there too popular. In addition, David Vincent made similar statements as the members of the black metal scene and supported their arson attacks on church buildings. Michael Moynihan characterizes the band's image in his book Lords of Chaos as paramilitary. He also said that they “enjoyed a neo-fascist reputation, which they promoted with inappropriate and provocative statements in interviews.” In the eyes of some other death metal bands the musicians are considered "difficult types who like to take themselves and their music a little too seriously" and "are too dogged as musicians"; Vincent replies: "We don't want to belong to those bands that are 'relaxed' and 'easy' in the studio and then deliver half-baked records."
In German-speaking countries, the band was rejected because of an incident during a US tour with the German thrash metal band Kreator . Miland "Mille" Petrozza , the front man of Kreator, wanted to have a spectator kicked out after they had shown the Hitler salute. Members of Morbid Angel prevented this with reference to freedom of expression in the USA. When Kreator made this public in Germany, David Vincent was accused of neo-Nazism and parts of the German press boycotted the entire tour through Germany with Immortal . He also came out “several times as a racist”, and rumors began circulating that he was in contact with organized neo-Nazis, so that he had to “throw in the towel in 1996”. In a 1997 interview with Rock Hard magazine , Trey Azagthoth denied all allegations on behalf of the band (which David Vincent had since left), stating:
“I'm not a fascist and certainly not a racist, because whether I like or dislike someone does not depend on outward appearances such as skin color, origin or race. The only decisive factor is a person's value system. "
Discography
Albums
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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- 1986: Abominations of Desolation ( produced as a debut album by Bill Metoyer , but was not released until 1991)
- 1989: Altars of Madness
- 1991: Blessed Are the Sick
- 1993: Covenant
- 1995: Domination
- 1996: Entangled in Chaos ( Live )
- 1998: Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
- 2000: Gateways to Annihilation
- 2003: Heretic
- 2011: Illud divinum insanus
- 2015: Juvenilia (Live 1989, released exclusively as vinyl for Record Store Day 2015)
- 2017: Kingdoms Disdained
Others
- 1985: The Beginning ( demo )
- 1986: Bleed for the Devil (Rehearsal-Demo)
- 1986: Scream for Blasphemies (Rehearsal-Demo)
- 1987: Thy Kingdom Come (demo)
- 1988: Thy Kingdom Come / Abominations (7 ″, also available as bootleg 7 ″ + bonus track)
- 1989: Chapel of Ghouls on Grind Crusher
- 1993: Rapture (single)
- 1994: Laibach Re-mixes ( EP )
- 1999: Love of Lava ( Best of )
- 2012: Ilud divinum insanus - the remixes (Remix album)
The band intends that the first letters of the album titles follow one another alphabetically.
literature
- Albert Mudrian: Choosing Death. The incredible story of Death Metal & Grindcore . IP Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-931624-35-8 .
- Holger Stratmann (Ed.): RockHard Encyclopedia. 700 of the most interesting rock bands from the last 30 years . Rock Hard Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , p. 259 .
Web links
- Official website
- Morbid Angel at Allmusic (English)
- Morbid Angel at laut.de
Individual evidence
- ^ RIP In: Metal Hammer , December 2004, p. 20.
- ↑ a b Mudrian: Choosing Death , p. 65
- ^ Albert Mudrian: Choosing Death. The incredible story of Death Metal & Grindcore . IP Jeske / Mader, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-931624-35-8 , p. 65 .
- ^ Mudrian: Choosing Death , p. 68
- ↑ a b Mudrian: Choosing Death , p. 162
- ^ Mudrian: Choosing Death , pp. 174f
- ↑ a b c Mudrian: Choosing Death , pp. 191f
- ^ Mudrian: Choosing Death , p. 203
- ^ Mudrian: Choosing Death , p. 205
- ↑ a b Frank Albrecht: The rhythm of the universe . In: Rock Hard . No. 198 .
- ^ Morbid Angel Signs With Season of Mist. Season of Mist, November 18, 2009, archived from the original on November 24, 2009 ; accessed on December 16, 2011 .
- ↑ MORBID ANGEL: New Album Title Revealed. Blabbermouth.net, March 9, 2011, accessed April 7, 2011 .
- ↑ Louise, Olivier "Zoltar" Badin: morbid-angel ilud divinum insanus exclusive preview. Terrorizer , April 6, 2011, accessed April 7, 2011 .
- ↑ MORBID ANGEL To Perform Entire 'Covenant' Album On Upcoming Tour , July 14, 2013, accessed July 15, 2013.
- ↑ Interview: Dave Vincent of Morbid Angel. Invisible Oranges, December 5, 2013, accessed December 11, 2013 .
- ↑ Morbid Angel's David Vincent Says Former Drummer Pete Sandoval Has 'Found Jesus'. Blabbermouth.net, December 5, 2013, accessed December 11, 2013 .
- ↑ blabbermouth.net
- ↑ blabbermouth.net
- ↑ blabbermouth.net
- ↑ blabbermouth.net
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ https://www.metal-hammer.de
- ↑ https://www.metal-hammer.de
- ↑ Varg Vikernes : A Burzum Story: Part I - The Origin And Meaning.
- ^ Jason Arnopp: "WE ARE BUT SLAVES OF THE ONE WITH HORNS ...". In: Kerrang! No. 436, March 27, 1993, pp. 42-46.
- ^ Brother Clé: Gallery of Dark Icons. In: Ablaze , No. 5, May / June 1995, p. 56.
- ↑ Götz Kühnemund: Too sick? In: Rock Hard . No. 72 , May 1993, p. 21 .
- ↑ Michael Moynihan , Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos . Extended and revised edition. Index Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-936878-00-4 , pp. 48 .
- ↑ Götz Kühnemund: Too sick? In: Rock Hard . No. 72 , p. 20 .
- ↑ musik-base.de: biography
- ↑ Holger Stratmann (Ed.): RockHard Encyclopedia . 700 of the most interesting rock bands from the last 30 years. Rock Hard Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , p. 259 .
- ↑ a b Christian Dornbusch, Hans-Peter Killguss: Unheilige Alliances . Black Metal between Satanism, Paganism and Neo-Nazism. Unrast Verlag , Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-817-0 , p. 26 .
- ↑ Götz Kühnemund: No more political bullshit! In: Rock Hard . No. 123 .
- ↑ Chart sources: Germany - Switzerland - USA