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(I dedicate this review to all the true deathsters who introduced me to listening to Morbid Angel, and especially to my dear friend BathoryAria, who brought me closer to this great band despite my strong initial skepticism. Thank you)
Year of Our Lord 1986: the spotlight of metal music is all on Thrash.
And how can you blame those in the business? Masterpieces like Metallica's “Master Of Puppets,” Megadeth's “Peace Sells…But Who's Buying?,” Anthrax's “Spreading The Disease,” and Slayer's “Reign In Blood” provided a new drive to our favorite genre, which would start from these immense timeless masterpieces to build the tough music of the time that was to come shortly after.
Taking inspiration precisely from these masterpieces and especially from the last group on my little list above, a group of somewhat "peculiar" thrashers from Tampa, Florida, with a strong passion for the Los Angeles quartet, for the so-called "chaos" and eager to play "faster and heavier ever" had founded a band destined to forever change the fate of death metal, laying the foundations on which the groups a few years later would build the skyscraper.
These friends, a certain David Vincent who engaged in growl singing, an absolute novelty for the time and promptly copied by successors not always up to the progenitor, a curious individual who self-described as "a three-hundred-year-old vampire," such Trey Azagthoth, a drummer who would become one of the best in the World reaching nineteen hits on the drum with the double pedal, Pete Sandoval (but you only need to ask for Jack... oh, sorry, Pete, uahahaha) and the one who was perhaps the most level-headed element of this excited bunch, the second guitarist Richard Brunelle, created under the name Morbid Angel, one of the most extreme, dark and fast bands that the World had ever known, making Slayer, who at the time seemed the most extreme thing ever sent to Earth from the depths of Hell, look like one of the many pop bands that were all the rage in those beautiful days of the Eighties (oh exaggerated!), thus marking the beginning of death metal.
Just after three years, in 1989, there was little talk of death metal, based on the "already heard" from the first albums of Death and Sepultura (mainly), perhaps also because the various Thrash masterpieces overshadowed the extreme music that at that time was slowly beginning to emit its first cries. Therefore, like a bolt from the blue, a true marker of the beginning of Morbid's career, here comes one of the fastest, dreadful, and innovative records on the scene: “Altar Of Madness,” an album that inspired a long series of subsequent death groups, including Pestilence and Death.
But let's get ready to listen, with the headphones tactically positioned on the ears to get even more shocked by the wall of sound created by the drum of that human metronome Sandoval, the lumberjack axes Azagthoth/Brunelle, and the percussive bass but above all by Vincent's innovative growl (I wonder how much ammonia he drank to get a voice like that...), who is at odds with all Christians who according to him are "hypocrites" (which means all Christians eheheh).
Note the excellent songwriting, which finds its strength not so much in the lyrics (which eventually come out effortlessly, contrary to what happened for bands like the "usual" Death and Pestilence) but in the spot-on riffing of the guitarists, with an Azagthoth who can be defined without fear of error as a riff machine in the compositional phase. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the lyrics, banal, clichéd, and quite simplistic, which also sound quite like pseudo-Satanist posers. Another note, the influence of Slayer IS VERY NOTICEABLE, especially in the axe-man solos and in the general riffing, influences that will be definitively abandoned already from the next “Blessed Are The Sick”, where the Morbid will find an excellent music/inspiration balance.
As you may have understood, this is a masterpiece, first and foremost of Morbid Angel themselves (confirming among other things as one of the best records of their troubled and difficult career) but also, for death metal in general, having inspired (and still inspiring today) any band that professes to have to do, even remotely, with the beautiful but criticized Metal of Death.
So, my dears: historic pieces, extremely high technique (except, unfortunately, for the bass), uncompromising speed, and guaranteed ear destruction: in three words, "Altar Of Madness".
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 Suffocation (03:15)
Laugh at the tragedies
Mock with disrespect
Goats under rule of father time
Leaches pass judgement on their fellow kind
And die when their inner self goes astray
Alas, I pay homage to the ancient ones
Speak my name!!
Raise the staff of the morbid priest
Descend into the fires of the true law
Suffocating evil smoke arise
Cleansing the masses in iniquity
Cauldrons blaze in sanctifying ritual
Vile crematory burns my eyes
Mortals filled with despair
They quest to foresee their fate
Caverns below await the wine to flow
Rape the harvest of souls
I watch in awe as the crucifiers march
Killing time, killing all I see
Another moon rise, human waste
Screaming "Why hath thou forsaken me?"
Suffocating evil smoke arise
Cleansing the masses in iniquity
Cauldrons blaze in sanctifying ritual
Vile crematory burns my eyes
It's the dawn of the crucifiers
Suffocation
04 Maze of Torment (04:25)
Life betrayal - a warping rage
Evil ripping caverns through your mind
Immolation - in blood you've signed your soul away
Sickening life ends but the horror has just begun
Vultures moaning a funeral dirge
Walls await to cradle you and rip your soul apart
Incessant screaming echoes through the maze
Insanity approaches - imminent demise
Maze of torment . . .
Stricken from the holy book deliverance to pain
Effigy of Jesus Christ burning in your mind
Voices cry out to bid you welcome
Locked within the dungeons of darkness - no escape!!
Maze of torment . . .
Passing through corridors embedded with
Scars of those who have gone before you
And left their marks
Warning comes too late to save you now
Visions of suffering stab from the inside
You pray for death
Mourning does no good as you can only die once
Souls are being raped by the maze
Lost in these halls . . . endlessly
Maze of torment . . .
05 Chapel of Ghouls (04:58)
Ghouls attack the church
Crush the holy priest
Turning the cross towards hell
Writhe in Satan's flames
Crush the priest
The feeble church
Dead - your god is dead
Fools - your god is dead
Useless prayers of lies
Behold Satan's rise
Crush the priest
The feeble church
The family of dog
Lust upon my altar
Demons attack with hate
Satan in the fires of hell awaits
Death against you all
God hear my death call
07 Damnation (04:10)
Evil Minds grievious sins
Pagan lives have no place for law
Twisted worship exhume the dead
Minds unite for evil cause
Death corrodes the book once strong
Evil lourd destroys his foes
Plague has spread throughout the land
Revelations have begun.
Call of evil's mastermind
Christians flock to the beast
Burning crosses burn souls
Exterminate the altar of laws
Atrocities of a new reich
Holy war and holocaust
God weeps and turns his back
The time is right to destroy the world
Damnation
Fill the world with plague
Force of devastation
Tyranny from above
Churning cities lust so profane
Driving the will to destroy
Crippling powers I'm forced to partake unholy rituals
Crimes of a world barely alive
Melting debauchery
Ashes to ashes, so must I be
Lost in this misery
There's nothing left here for me
I know of no other way
Even death cannot change my ways
I'm first in the line
To hell we shall go
Calls of evils mastermind
Christians flock to the beast
Burning crosses burn souls
Time is right to destroy the world
08 Blasphemy (03:32)
I am the god of gods
Master of the arts
I desecrate the chaste
Writhe in the flesh
Blasphemy
Chant the blasphemy
Mockery of the messiah
We curse the holy ghost
Enslaver of the weak
God of lies and greed
God of hypocrisy
We laugh at your bastard child
No god shall come before me
Blaspheme the ghost
Blaspheme the ghost
Blaspheme the ghost
Blasphemy of the holy ghost
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Rebel against the church
Drink from the chalice of blasphemy
Rise up against the enslaver
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Other reviews
By HellKnight
"Altars of Madness is the emblem of death metal that any fan of this fantastic genre should have."
"Thirteen tracks of catastrophic power that heavily hit the listener’s mind, leaving them strongly impressed and ecstatic."
By Prometheus
Altars Of Madness can be considered the album that more than any other defines the very nature of the Death Metal phenomenon.
Listening to this album is like delving into the dark recesses of the Human mind, in a universe where the truths we know no longer exist.
