Altars of Madness

When Morbid Angel released "Altars of Madness" in 1989, it immediately assumed its place as death metal's first legitimate masterpiece. Building on the basic ideas of Slayer, Morbid Angel combined a stripped down, punk influenced rawness of performance with unconventional song structures and longer melodic phrases. In doing so, they created a style all their own, driven by churning, chaotic guitar riffing and solos that scream with reckless abandon. The interplay between Azagtoth and Brunelle's guitar styles makes the album - Azagthoth plays go-for-broke atonal solos, while Brunelle is more traditional and restrained (a relative term of course). They complement each other perfectly, Azagthoth embodying the savage spirit of hellish death metal, while Brunelle's cleaner and more musically literate playing provides balance and distinction to the songs.

The strongest aspect of "Altars of Madness" is how the songs remain distinctive and memorable without any concession to mainstream musical styles. It's not easy to play ten songs of brutal, traditional death metal and make each and every song completely memorable, but Morbid Angel pull it off. You can literally put the needle down in any random spot on the record and immediately know what part of what song you are in. How many death metal albums can you honestly say that about?

It's hard to pick a favorite on an album that is basically a forty-minute long highlight reel for its entire genre, but if you held a gun to my head I would have to go with Maze of Torment. After a (relatively) slow Celtic Frost-influenced buildup, it launches into a cycle of punishingly majestic riffs driven by Sandoval's relentless blastbeat and a break for some brutal slower grooves in the middle. Other highlights include Immortal Rites with its signature opening riff, the catchy vocal patterns on Lord of all Fevers and Plagues, and the live favorite Chapel of Ghouls. The album's second half is less epic than the first but still maintains the quality, closing on a high note with Blasphemy and Evil Spells. Even the less memorable numbers like Bleed For The Devil only suffer from being sandwiched in a playlist of immortal classics - stick it on any other band's album and it would be a career highlight.

The vocals are different than on any other MA album - more higher pitched, almost a black metal rasp. Vincent attributes this to his quitting smoking after the release of this album; although his voice achieved more low end power in later performances, on this album he sings with a seething diabolical energy that he would never achieve on any later albums. Vocals aside, there really is more black metal influence here than on any other Morbid Angel release; the longer tremolo guitar harmonies in songs like Visions from the Darkside sound somewhat similar to what Immortal would do a few years later.

If by chance you haven't heard this already, you owe it to yourself to do so. This was the album that established death metal as a real musical genre, launching the career of thousands of bands, and in my opinion its quality has not been rivaled since. Although Morbid Angel came close to duplicating its success with 1991's "Blessed Are The Sick", this was the album that established the basic template of all modern death metal music. It is also a perfect snapshot of a musical genre in its inception, before the "rules" of genres had been codified so rigorously and there was fluid interplay between them. This is an album, to quote the liner notes, for "speed, death and black metal fans everywhere". Highest possible recommendation.