Morbid Angel
Illud Divinum Insanus - The Remixes ()
Wydane przez Season Of Mist RecordsRok wydania Kraj USANapisał Wouter3
Where does one drawn the line when dealing with once revered, once leading genre acts gone off the deep end? Do Trey and Morbid Angel truly believe (or have deluded themselves to believe) that this is what fans want them to produce? What’s Season Of Mist’s part in this debacle and exactly who is the intended target audience for this whopping double disc remix album? This and any number of other questions arise when dissecting this package Morbid Angel have released after their critically panned and highly controversial, if not polarizing, “Illud Divinum Insanus” of last year. There’s a whopping three hours’ worth of material to be found on this double album, which can be considered a companion piece to the original work. Known contributors for disc 1 include Laibach, Cevin Key, Synapscape, Punish Yourself, Mixhell (former Sepultura drummer Igor Cavalera’s DJ project), Xytras (Alexandre Locher of Swiss experimentalists Samael) while known contributors for disc 2 include Nachtmahr (related to gothic act L’Ame Immortelle), Tim Sköld, Black Strobe, Chris Pohl (Blutengel), Project Pitchfork, Treponem Pal, DJ Ruffneck and Oliver ‘The Horrorist’ Chesler. A lot of these artists and collaborators appear to be based around the German indie label Ant-Zen. Why there aren’t any remixes by Luke Kenny (The Berzerker), Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly), Alex Newport (Fudge Tunnel), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Liam Howlett (The Prodigy) or Al Jourgensen (Ministry) is anybody’s guess as these people at least have a footing in the world of extreme metal. Not that there’s anything against the principle of remix albums. Fear Factory and Morbid Angel themselves pioneered the whole endeavour in the extreme metal world. Of the 39 tracks, there are eleven versions of ‘I Am Morbid’, five versions of ‘10 More Dead’, five versions of ‘Destructo VS The Earth’, four versions of ‘Radikult’, four versions of ‘Too Extreme’, and three versions of ‘Existo Vulgore’. This is not counting a number of halfway remixes of various tracks. Surprisingly, a lot of these remixes sound better than the originals, which says enough in and about itself. The first pressing contains another 8 additional bonus tracks, as a digital bonus. When fan goodwill is at an all-time low (as it should be after “IDI”), it isn’t exactly the most sensible of actions to release something like this. Why aren’t we asking Morbid Angel make up their mind in what direction they want to take? They cannot have it both ways. Anybody in the right mind should boycott this band, in terms of sales as well as in regards to tours. It is hard to judge exactly who the target audience for this release is, as Morbid Angel has no established fandom in the scenes of ambient, dubstep, electronica, EBM and industrial – neither are any of those genres fans going to crossover into death metal and vice versa. It’s doubtful whether this will lead Morbid Angel into being played in danceclubs across Europe and the United States or elsewhere, but this is the course they have chosen. Thankfully, there are promising new units that are sworn to the black (Abhordium, Brain Drill, Darkrise, Mithras, Near Death Condition, Obscura, Owl, Sanctification, Sickening Horror, Spearhead) and the old guard (Aurora Borealis, Behemoth, Divine Rapture, Hour Of Penance, Incantation, Lost Soul, Monstrosity, Nile, Pavor, Suffocation, Vital Remains) to offer viable alternatives to the unholy blasphemies of this once leading and pioneering act.
