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Morbid Angel - Heretic review




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Reviewer:
8.0

340 users:
6.99
Band: Morbid Angel
Album: Heretic
Style: Death metal
Release date: 2003


01. Cleansed In Pestilence (Blade Of Elohim)
02. Enshrined By Grace
03. Beneath The Hollow
04. Curse The Flesh
05. Praise The Strength
06. Stricken Arise
07. Place Of Many Death
08. Abyssous
09. God Of Our Own Divinity
10. Within Thy Enemy
11. Memories Of The Past
12. Victorious March Of Reign The Conqueror
13. Drum Check
14. Born Again

The first tracks of this album are worthwhile enough; people say this might be Morbid Angel's weaker album, the vocalist became powerless (cool thing because that fact marked David Vincent's return) the music is a little uninspired and the songwriting wasn't as tight as it used to be?but those two first songs are way intense and more powerful than any song in the entire "Steve Tucker" roster.

"Heretic" is in no way "Altars Of Mandes" nor "Covenant", it's an album from a band that had been active for 20 years before releasing this CD, don't you get it? We can't receive the same things over and over again, the music has to evolve and has to show a reminiscent progress?but apparently "Heretic" didn't do that, this album shows exactly the same formula that appeared on "Gateways?" but with a less digestible line.

But you have to be smart for this, every single Morbid Angel album is a fucking masterpiece, it's just that some of them are in a lesser extent. "Heretic" delivers intense Death Metal in a very technical and catchy way, the guitar solos are magnificent, the riffing is outstanding and the execution is more than brilliant, the problem appears when we compare this album in a past tense?"this album is great, but they used to be better" that's our biggest mistake, why in hell we have to compare this album?

People who has never been into Morbid Angel worship this piece, that's the best example of my words, "Heretic" truly is an outstanding album, but when we fucked up things and compare it with their first efforts, we'll only ruin our experience.

I can easily recommend this record, it's brutal, it's catchy, it's Morbid Angel for crying out loud, you call yourself a death metal aficionado? You are not one if you don't have every Morbid Angel album in your collection.

Best Tracks: "Enshrined By Grace", "Cleansed In Pestilence"


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 7
Production: 8

Written by Herzebeth | 18.04.2007



Guest review by
Justin
Rating:
8.5
Unquestionably one of death metals pioneers, Morbid Angel have once again returned to prominence with a new album, and to show all why their highly regarded influential reputation precedes them before anyone else on the scene. Keeping in line with Morbid Angel's alphabetical album titles, the three piece act's latest goes under the name of ?Heretic?.

Read more ››
published 22.09.2003 | Comments (10)


Comments

Comments: 6   Visited by: 102 users
18.01.2008 - 15:35
Rating: 9
Thrash del Sur

I'm very agree with you in all what you wrote man!! This is a great fuckin' album!! I introduced Mobid Angel to a few young kids friend's of mine and they prefered this album more than another Morbid Angel album which is a shame (I think it's happens cause the quality of the sound)... but then with time they started to listen the old ones!!
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18.01.2008 - 21:10
Abattoir

Good review and of course very good album...I like it very much...
Looking forward for the next album as well...it has been a long break from this album ...
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28.06.2008 - 20:45
theflyingmachine

8 is a pretty good rating. As most everyone is so quick to point out, this probably isn't Morbid Angel's best album. There are way too many atmospheric tracks, and most of them aren't anything special either. But, I have to agree with the review that the problem with this album is comparing it to the past. I would imagine that if someone listened to Cleansed in Pestilence or Stricken Arise without knowing who it is, they would probably be a fan of this album. There are some very good songs in this album, and I would recommend it to any death metal fan.
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02.06.2009 - 18:29
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
Normal album. Nothing that can surpass Domination or Altar of Madness. But still it has some good songs like ''Enshrined by grace'', ''Beneath the hollow'' and ''God of our own divinity''. Hope their new album coming this year have something more to show than just a decent piece of death metal.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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04.04.2011 - 09:00
Basically

I can see what happened here with these guys. I'm a strong fan of theirs and I could never get into this album until not too long ago. I can hear it as a guitarist that grew listening to Morbid Angel, starting to play just as Formulas came out, that Trey has lost a great deal of creativity in song writing. I've been watching interviews with them, post-Vincent. He acts like it was because David Vincent wasn't writing lyrics that he likes, but what really happened is that Vincent married Gen from the Genitortures and played bass and toured with her band. It's really that simple. Vincent's more social, and he isn't. It's my guess Vincent teamed back up with them when he heard this album, because compared to every other album, this one is complete and utter garbage. Track 14 is nothing more than the solo at the end of Invocation of the Continual off of Formulas without any backing music. If you were a big fan in the late 90s, they had a special edition CD you could get with JUST Trey's guitar solos without any backing instruments. This album is just plain terrible for their previous standards.
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04.04.2011 - 11:28
zero

I'm 100% into this album. Excepted for the absurd drum check!!!
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