Genuinely perplexed by this album. It varies from maddeningly catchy industrial stomp like Too Extreme! and Destructos to some decent death metal. Add a bucketload of brilliant solos, and a sense of gleeful adventure that makes for a very entertaining listen, and you have this album! This is the first album I've heard in - well, ever - that had me really unsure as to whether it was good or bad. It's hardly brilliance, but it just works as entertainment in a way that I've never come across in Death Metal before. I'm glad they went for something wacky like this rather than just releasing an album full of songs like Nevermore, because it's caught my attention and interest far better. It could easily have been Heretic part 2. What? Fuck off. That's the easy route. That's not what I listen to the underground for.
Whatever you think, this is not in the same league as St Anger or Unspoken King, this is a ballpark all of its own. People screaming betrayal have clearly not listened to the brilliance of some of those solos, and besides have no sense of humour at Morbid Angel releasing disco-death-metal songs about cults. Morbid Angel! Yes, I'm sorry that they've not released another album as good as their first few, but I'm glad that Death Metal can still surprise and delight and confuse me like this. It'll take a lot of listens before I agree with Jake's score - at the moment, I'm still convinced that there's a lot of stuff here that just doesn't work, however much fun it is to listen to - but I can certainly see his point.
