Formulas Fatal to the Flesh

When David Vincent left Morbid Angel, many people thought it would be impossible to replace him. Then Erik Rutan left, leaving but Trey and Pete to write the bulk of the material on this album. Following up the smashing success of Domination (a record I do enjoy, despite its somewhat unorthodox and potentially "commercial" nature) was not going to be an easy feat, especially since they had just been dropped from Giant and alienated a lot of the br00tul death crowd with Domination. The future looked bleak.

But FFttF blew those doubts clear out of the fucking water.

Trey wrote pretty much the whole album here, with a bit of help from Pete. What we have is an entire album of viscious, warped riffing. There's the churning riffs of "Heaving Earth," the slight melodic touches on "Prayer of Hatred," and the ultra sludge of "Nothing Is Not." And I believe that this album displays his best and most characteristic solos. Just have a listen to the solo in "Nothing Is Not." Pure godliness! And Trey even does vocals, a screechy black metal-esque rasp on "Invocation of the Continual One," and amazingly, it works. The ending of that song is just fucking amazing, too, by the way.

Even though I'm not a fan at all of his now triggered drumming, Pete's role on this album is immense. His drums certainly take a bit of a back role to Trey's unrelenting guitar assault, but he's got no lack of tricks up his sleeve. His little fills in the slower parts of "Prayer of Hatred" are almost prog-rock like, whereas elsewhere, he seems to know just the right fills to throw in where necessary.

Steve's vocals are much less comprehensible than David Vincent's, and appear to be lower in the mix. This is kind of irritating, hence I took some points off. He seems like he's a bit intimidated by his role in the band, and a bit uncomfortable, but in the end, you get used to his vocals.

The production and overall feel of the album are both raw and very spontaneous, bringing in that Altars of Madness feel, but with more variety in the riffage. I love the fact that some lyrics are actual sumerian invocations, because they add immensely to the obscure atmosphere of the album.

The instrumentals at the end tend to really take away from the whole of the album, especially "Trooper" which really seems out of place. Perhaps, had they been mixed in, I could have added an extra four points to the score. Other than that, this has to be the best thing Morbid Angel has done since Blessed Are the Sick and the closest to a "br00tal" death metal album without the idiocy.