even official snow mobile roads are 99% safe, but we ride over all and be in ice its always at your own risk, and mid april is my border when I go on the ice
We have one ice road for cars, in Luleå you can drive car to small islands . To get to the town I need cross 6 lakes, by snow mobile and almost all roads cross some water way. I gass as crazy when I cross rivers or big big lakes
01. Piles Of Little Arms 02. D.E.A.D. 03. Garden Of Disdain 04. The Righteous Voice 05. Architect And Iconoclast 06. Paradigms Warped 07. The Pillars Crumbling 08. For No Master 09. Declaring New Law (Secret Hell) 10. From The Hand Of Kings 11. The Fall Of Idols
When your debut is one of the best metal records ever released, also defining an entire genre, it takes a lot of effort to live up to it through the rest of your career. Morbid Angel have not recorded a death metal album in the last 14 years; they have not recorded a great death metal album in the last 24 years. Kingdoms Disdained is a death metal record through and through. Keep reading to find out if it is great or not.
Morbid Angel's new release finds the band with only one of the members that participated in the legendary A-B-C albums. On the other hand, Trey Azagthoth isMorbid Angel and I guess not many people care much about David Vincent being replaced by Steve Tucker; after all, Vincent's glorious return to the band resulted in the abomination that was Illud Divinum Insanus. Iconic drummer, Pete Sandoval, is once again absent; behind the drum kit is Scott Fuller (Annihilated, ex-Abysmal Dawn) and he is pretty much the main reason why you should listen to Kingdoms Disdained.
The artificial-looking cover artwork, coming straight from a '90s video game and displaying an elderly, gigantic beast resurrecting from the earth's core spreading fire and destruction, is actually an apt visual description of the album's music. Kingdoms Disdained is undeniably brutal and on fire, but it also deeply lacks variety and emotion. It is an offering that comes from an old, once pioneering and massively influential band, which has resurrected only to play it as safe as possible. The music sounds dated and obsolete and the album's bland production goes hand in hand with the generic death metal featured in it.
On a more positive note - and if you manage to disregard the awful, guitar-burying and plastic mix - there are some interesting moments in Kingdoms Disdained, such as the constant tempo and riff changes in "D.E.A.D.", Tucker's bass lines in "Paradigms Warped", the magnificent lead guitar work in the outro of "The Pillars Crumbling" and the dissonant riffing over Fuller's drum orgy in "From The Hand Of Kings". The mid-tempo crushers, "Architect And Iconoclast" and "Declaring New Law (Secret Hell)", might also get you excited in their beginning, until you realise that they lack the necessary juice to keep you pumped up. This is the main problem with Kingdoms Disdained; its only steady characteristic throughout is repetitiveness, with tracks that play out without real edge. Trying to find something identifiable and memorable is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
If the purpose of this release was to clear the stain the previous album left on Morbid Angel's reputation, Kingdoms Disdained should be considered a success. At least it is a decent effort, albeit too often dull and monotonous for its own good. If it is viewed as a release of one of the trendsetting and most prominent death metal bands in the history of the genre though, I am afraid it doesn't live up to the logo on the cover. In all fairness, if said logo wasn't on the cover we probably wouldn't be discussing it at all.
"A shattered ego fallen,
Dismissed and soon forgotten,
Your name will soon be erased?"
I find myself in a somewhat weird position. Even though I am a long-time fan of Morbid Angel, I always found the incredible David Vincent to be incredibly cringy. Anything the man does on and off the stage causes an imaginary nail to grind against every single one of my bones. He is an amazing vocalist and MA owes a huge part of their success to his whole persona, but I do think that you can blame many of their mishaps on him, too. Weird elitist interviews, silly fights over politics with other bands while on tour, the alleged gifting of Mein Kampf to the immortal Lemmy (who in turn allegedly smashed him over the head with it) are just a few examples of what I mean. In retrospect I do feel that he did more harm than good and Trey would have always been better off without him in the band.
Jokes aside, great review! I agree with you with the production it truly sank the album from "meh" to "haha, no". Unimpressive and certainly no one would have mentioned it if the members were anonymous because so is the music.
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Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Like you could kiss my ass
Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49 Rod, let me love you.
Influential albums aside, Domination is their crowning achievement in my opinion so I don't know if I can trust this
Otherwise, well-written review man!
Quote: I am afraid it doesn't live up to the logo on the cover. In all fairness, if said logo wasn't on the cover we probably wouldn't be discussing it at all.
Let me rephrase this for you: if said logo wasn't on the cover, we would be praising a good album from an obscure band. Because it is a good album. The only thing hat prevents you from liking it is that logo on the cover. You expect Morbid Angel to re-invent death metal? They co-invented it (in a way). That's enough achievements for one band. Quality-wise "Kingdoms" is somewhere close to "Formulas", and better that "Gateways" and "Heretic". (The "I" album doesn't even deserve a mention). The production is not so great I agree, but my only real gripe is the vocals being too low in the mix.
Quote: I am afraid it doesn't live up to the logo on the cover. In all fairness, if said logo wasn't on the cover we probably wouldn't be discussing it at all.
Let me rephrase this for you: if said logo wasn't on the cover, we would be praising a good album from an obscure band. Because it is a good album. The only thing hat prevents you from liking it is that logo on the cover. You expect Morbid Angel to re-invent death metal? They co-invented it (in a way). That's enough achievements for one band. Quality-wise "Kingdoms" is somewhere close to "Formulas", and better that "Gateways" and "Heretic". (The "I" album doesn't even deserve a mention). The production is not so great I agree, but my only real gripe is the vocals being too low in the mix.
Quote: I am afraid it doesn't live up to the logo on the cover. In all fairness, if said logo wasn't on the cover we probably wouldn't be discussing it at all.
Let me rephrase this for you: if said logo wasn't on the cover, we would be praising a good album from an obscure band. Because it is a good album. The only thing hat prevents you from liking it is that logo on the cover. You expect Morbid Angel to re-invent death metal? They co-invented it (in a way). That's enough achievements for one band. Quality-wise "Kingdoms" is somewhere close to "Formulas", and better that "Gateways" and "Heretic". (The "I" album doesn't even deserve a mention). The production is not so great I agree, but my only real gripe is the vocals being too low in the mix.
To me, Morbid Angel is a legendary band because they did co-invent a genre. They have achieved more than enough for one band, but I don't think I am very influenced by the logo because I wasn't expecting much anyway. Tbh I was pleasantly surprised, because this was a great improvement compared to its terrible predecessor. I tried very hard to like it, listened to it so much, but in the end it always came down to this: it is decent, but fucking boring. It reminds me a lot of this year's Suffocation album. If it was released by an unknown band, I might have bumped up the final score by half a point.
So it's just like every other Tucker album - boring and average. Meh.
Say what you want about Illud, at least it changed the formula and was something new. Somehow, without David VIncent, Trey just cannot compose fresh sounding and memorable music. I can easily recall every song from ABCDI albums, but none from Tucker ones.
I would love for Vincent to come back again and do another experiment with Trey. On their own they don't seem to be able to do too well.
Truthfully i enjoy it more than anything they've done in 20 years. bordering on 7.5 for me. Only reason i might prefer Domination is some of the werider tracks.
Truthfully i enjoy it more than anything they've done in 20 years. bordering on 7.5 for me. Only reason i might prefer Domination is some of the werider tracks.
Finally someone else than me that appreciates the album
Spot on review. I would say it is their best album since Heretic. I know, that is not a difficult feat.
Best since "Heretic" That's not hard at all.
It's better than I, H, and G.
Nowhere near as good as Gateways, could argue for it being on a par with Heretic. Of course better than Illud, but that one was one gigantic disaster on a par with Lulu.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal
Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
It's sad that so many of the great death metal bands of the early '90s released pretty average albums this year. Only Immolation managed to deliver something worthy of their name. Luckily, plenty of newer bands have offered us outstanding dm stuff in 2017.
@Marcel: I would rate KD equal to Heretic, too. And Illud's comparison with St. Anger is a very accurate one.
@Daniel: I agree, Lulu is far worse than Illud. But then again, Lulu is far worse than almost everything, it probably only tops Justin Bieber's shit. Marginally.
Of course better than Illud, but that one was one gigantic disaster on a par with Lulu.
Illud had a few decent songs, while Lulu had none.
I liked this track...
back on track... Gateways and FFF (666) had a few weirder tracks towards the end I enjoyed as well. Heretic was completely forgettable. don't think I listened to it more than 3 times. never clicked or piqued with me.
i did go into it with 5-6 expectations, it was better than I thought. this one I'll check out a few more times to see if it goes up or down, but on an initial two spins while blowing shit up on PS4 and drinking watery Aguila (AguaLa) i liked it enough not to delete from SPotify after one pass... something I can't say for fistful of other DM albums i've checked this year in similar circumstances.
though perhaps checking it out after a bunch that failed to interest me helped it... had this come on immediately after Venenum, likely would have scored lower.
back on track... Gateways and FFF (666) had a few weirder tracks towards the end I enjoyed as well.
I've always thought those weird tracks were stupid, bad and redundant. "Ascent Through The Spheres",
"Hymnos Rituales De Guerra", "Trooper", "Hymn To A Gas Giant", " Victorious March of Reign The Conqueror",
"Drum Check", "Born Again", "Nar Mattaru", "Dreaming", "Kawazu". Almost every album has them. Completely skippable.
I've always thought those weird tracks were stupid, bad and redundant. "Ascent Through The Spheres",
"Hymnos Rituales De Guerra", "Trooper", "Hymn To A Gas Giant", " Victorious March of Reign The Conqueror",
"Drum Check", "Born Again", "Nar Mattaru", "Dreaming", "Kawazu". Almost every album has them. Completely skippable.
Amen to that. The only interludes I really enjoyed were in Blessed Are The Sick.
Haven't listened to the whole thing yet, so I can't say much about how much I enjoy the album overall, but so far there's been some decent moments here and there. Production is awful, but tbh so was the production on Domination and Gateways.
Got it on vinyl today, the sound is perfect, crystal clear & sharp. The mix is perfect after all! (unlike the muddiness of the mp3s i heard 1st) - Kingdoms Disdained is such an addictive throwback to Formulas Fatal to the Flesh <3
Got it on vinyl today, the sound is perfect, crystal clear & sharp. The mix is perfect after all! (unlike the muddiness of the mp3s i heard 1st) - Kingdoms Disdained is such an addictive throwback to Formulas Fatal to the Flesh <3
Really? This is interesting. I wonder if other people owning the vinyl share this view.
Got it on vinyl today, the sound is perfect, crystal clear & sharp. The mix is perfect after all! (unlike the muddiness of the mp3s i heard 1st) - Kingdoms Disdained is such an addictive throwback to Formulas Fatal to the Flesh <3
Really? This is interesting. I wonder if other people owning the vinyl share this view.