In this series of posts I'll discuss an album I picked up as a teenager or my early 20s and haven't listened to in a very long time.
That said, I have still listened to a few tracks from it here and there since 2011. There's a handful of really fucking awful tunes on here that were something of a meme among me and my friend. I've played turkeys like 'Too Extreme!', 'I Am Morbid', 'Destructos vs. the Earth/Attack' and 'Radikult' in the Bloodstock festival campsite as a joke over the years, yet there's actually some stuff on this album that's legimately good. Stuff that actually sounds like proper Morbid Angel - and that's why I don't hate this record. By default, I can't agree with the whole 'Illud is one of the worst metal albums of all time' sentiment because it has a handful of tracks on it that actually sound pretty good to my ears! But obviously I'm not just gonna gloss over the fact there is some embarrassing shite to be discovered within Illud. A lot of the general criticisms of this album are common for a reason. I mean, did anyone want to hear the death metal pioneers that are Morbid Angel dabble with industrial/techno beats?! What is is this, the mid '90s?! Had this album come out in the mid '90s, maybe it would've fared better? Who knows. Either way when going into Illud Divinum Insanus, don't expect Altars of Madness part II. Or Blessed Are the Sick part II. Or even Domination part II. You do get some stuff on here that sounds like typical MA to me, true, but the experimentation is certainly unavoidable on certain tracks.
I've already mentioned the absolute worst songs on this album; 'Too Extreme!' is a horrid opener, but with a title like that (complete with exclamation mark for extra silliness) you can already see that's something's not quite right before you've even listened to it. Absolutely ridiculous lyrics and vocals from David Vincent, who by the way made his comeback on this album, having not been present since 1995's Domination! Worse though, is the industrial beats that plague this song musically. What were they thinking? 'I Am Morbid' is a bizarre attempt at an anthem?! I won't call it arena rock because it's still far too heavy for that, but it's definitely as commercial-sounding as Morbid Angel could ever get! And guess what? It sucks. And the lyrics are cringe! Meanwhile 'Destructors vs. the Earth/Attack' is a mid-tempo mish-mash of groove/industrial metal elements, terrible lyrics (yet again) and plenty of facepalm moments. Just as baffling is indeed 'Radikult', which sounds like a song Rob Zombie wrote and handed to Morbid Angel because they were all out of ideas in the studio. Absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing, as is the final song on this record, 'Profundis - Mea Culpa'. This one could've maybe been okay if it weren't for all the electronic bullshit that's been smattered all over the guitars and drums. As it stands however, it's a joke of an album finale.
Like I said earlier, it's not all bad. For starters, 'Existo Vulgore', 'Blades for Baal' and 'Beauty Meets Beast' all sound like Morbid Angel to me, and decent Morbid Angel at that. Not peak MA of course, but solid. Heavy, technical, twisted, evil and, erm, Morbid Angel-like! David Vincent's voice is lacks the harshness of the stuff he sang on the earlier albums; he still growls and grunts as you'd expect, but the words are much more pronounced and audible now in my opinion. If the lyrics were better, I'd probably take zero issue with this! But hey, on the songs I do like (or at least find listenable), I don't have a problem with David's vocals. '10 More Dead' is okay too I suppose. Trey's guitar soloing on it superb. But the riffs reek of groove metal to me, more so than death metal. They're not bad riffs, they're just not very Trey Azagthoth-y either! 'Nevermore' is mostly tolerable as well. That "Whooahh!" part around the mid-section of the song is kind of annoying, but at least the music is certainly death metal. Tim Yeung's drumming throughout the entire album too, is stellar. Even on the tracks that suck! Super tight and precise blast beats and fills, and never dull. And even though the album has it's share of groove metal riffage that is not typical to Trey Azagthoth's signature style, the guitar work overall on this album is still good in my books. And hey, I'll even say the production is solid too! The instruments are crisp and clear to listen to, and the guitar tones are cool as well. It doesn't make the shitty songs any more listenable of course, but sonically I'm finding it kind of difficult to complain about the production here.
I think a lot of this album's pathetic reputation is down to the fact the bad tracks here really are, truly bad. But Illud Divinum Insanus is made up of 11 tracks of which 10 are actual songs (track 1 is just a short intro, so I don't count it). 3 of these songs are good, 2 are not bad. The remaining 5 are strange experiments gone haywire. So by default I feel like I kind of have to rate Illud lower than a 5/10... but the fact it still has 5 songs I either like or can tolerate probably means I still like this album way more than the average Morbid Angel fan. Yeah it's not good, and I don't think I'll be listening to it in full again anytime soon. But I've heard far worse metal albums in my career as a human being than this one. Megadeth's Risk springs to mind!
And I've just realised that I haven't said anything about when I actually got my hands on this record for the first time, given the context of these blog posts. Well, I got it in 2011 when I was 19 around the time it dropped in June, but not from day 1. I saw people review bombing it on Metal Archives and I bought it anyway. Why? Because of the 2 times I've seen Morbid Angel live, both performances were in 2011! I saw them at Bloodstock in August, and again at the Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton in November! So I actually saw them on the Illud Divinum Insanus tour! I think the reason I bought the album despite all the negativity was purely because I knew they'd be playing songs from it when I saw them live. And they did - 'Existo Vulgore', 'I Am Morbid' and 'Nevermore' to be precise. I don't remember these songs going down badly with the crowd.
Adam's rating: 4.6/10
