GMD Poll: Morbid Angel's Discography Ranked

[crimsonfloyd]

Directions: Rank Morbid Angel's studio albums. Order and number each album 1-9. Ties are OK. Your first place album earns 9 points, your second place album earns 8 points, etc.

Rules:

• You may rank as few as 6 albums. Lists with less than 6 albums will not be counted.
• If you list less than 9 albums, the first placed album will still get 9 points, the last placed album will still get 1 point, and the albums in between will have points distributed proportionately. The average points earned for albums that are not listed will not be impacted positively or negatively, so if you don't rank an album, you neither help it or hurt it.
• I am removing the TechnicalBarbarity Rule. We need more votes in these, so I need no benefit in discriminating based on post count. If something seems super shady, I'll just exclude it.

At the end, the albums will be ranked based on their average number of points per vote.

You have until Sunday June 24th to finalize your list, re-familiarize yourself albums you haven’t heard in awhile, familiarize yourself with albums you haven’t heard at all, lobby for any albums you think are underrated, and lobby against any albums you think are overrated.

And please, no pseudo-Machiavelli shit. Just rank them as you see them.

Altars of Madness (1989)
Blessed are the Sick (1991)
Covenant (1993)
Domination (1995)
Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (1998)
Gateways to Annihilation (2000)
Heretic (2003)
Illud Divinum Insanus (2011)
Kingdoms Disdained (2017)

 

[The Ozzman]

1) Covenant
2) Gateways to Annihilation
3) Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
4) Blessed are the Sick
5) Altars of Madness
6) Kingdoms Disdained
7) Domination
8) Heretic

#5 is going to trigger some people but tbh even if I listened to it again, it would only switch places with Blessed. Gateways and Formulas are just so fucking frenetic and violent that I can't help but love them. Covenant is #1 for nostalgia reasons. I'll have to see if Domination moves at all but honestly that album is forgettable to me except for Where the Slime Lives.

 

[Phylactery]

1. Blessed are the Sick
2. Altars of Madness
3. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
4. Covenant
5. Gateways to Annihilation
6. Domination
7. Illud Divinus Insanum
8. Heretic

Need to revisit Domination and Gateways before I settle on the order, but everything after number 4 doesn’t excite me much.

Illud and Heretic are both shit, but at least Illud provides some form of comic relief in how terrible it is. Heretic is just bad.

Are we including Abominations or not?

 

[crimsonfloyd]

1. Blessed are the Sick (if you don’t like this, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes death metal (hell extreme metal in general) great. In fact, you probably have shit taste.)

Ironic, since you and I have overall similar taste in extreme metal, you are implying you have shit taste.

Anyway, I'm gonna give all their classic albums an honest try (aka 5 listens each) before voting for this one and see if my perspective on them changes.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Are we including Abominations or not?

I defer to the fans.

 

[Phylactery]

Ironic, since you and I have overall similar taste in extreme metal, you are implying you have shit taste.

Anyway, I'm gonna give all their classic albums an honest try (aka 5 listens each) before voting for this one and see if my perspective on them changes.

Actually, I’m really fucking drunk and this post is not to be taken seriously at all (outside of the order, which I stand by). However, I was a bit annoyed at your reply in the 2008 thread that implied I have shit taste for including that split so high. After I’d taken the time to recommend stuff l thought may interest you. I’ve always respected your taste (if not always agreed with them) because you actually explain why you like what you like and you stick to your guns. Your response came across as rather passive aggressive.

If Abominations is being included let me know and I will edit my list.

 

[RadicalThrasher]

1. Altars of Madness

 

[zabu of nΩd]

FINALLY.

This is an extremely hard band for me to rank (too extreme!?), due to the largely inverse relationship between how much I like the atmosphere/uniqueness of a given album versus its other qualities. I doubt my list will come close to matching anyone else's, but it's my best attempt at weighing numerous factors.

The first six studio albums are all excellent, and I can understand seeing any of them at the top of someone's list, but I'd be disappointed to see the first three in all the top spots of a list, because to me Morbid Angel is a band which transcended the conventions of death metal in an important way, starting with Domination.

1. Domination (I'm torn on this because it's not my favorite album for end-to-end listening, but I have to give it the top spot for two reasons: it has some of my favorite songs in the discog--especially "Where the Slime Live"--and I think it's their most successful effort at experimentation, with every subsequent release ranging from 'something missing' to 'comically awful'.)
2. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (This one I'm torn on because it has none of my favorite songs, but somehow I seem to get the greatest pure listening enjoyment out of it. While I tend to find atmosphere and "kickass" inversely related in MA's releases, the combination on FFttF works well for me.)
3. Gateways to Annihilation (My favorite for pure atmosphere. I absolutely fucking love the way this sounds, and very few metal albums give me such a distinct aesthetic lens into a universe of darkness and hellfire. Unfortunately it's rather monotonous after a while.)
4. Altars of Madness (To me this always stands out as the thrashy album. I won't presume to know how innovative it was in 1989, but in hindsight it sounds like one of their more conventional. Still, it has terrific energy, and there are deliciously catchy moments in songs like "Maze of Torment", "Lord of All Fevers & Plague", and "Chapel of Ghouls".)
5. Covenant (Structurally it's hard to tell this apart from Blessed Are the Sick, but the step up in production really improves my enjoyment of it versus BatS, even if it's not quite as 'crazy'.)
6. Blessed Are the Sick (As crazy/chaotic as Altars, but subtler and bassier. Those qualities alone don't elevate the album in my view. I still love it, there's just nothing that stands out for me.)
7. Illud Divinum Insanus (What a nut to crack... Highly flawed, yet not as bad as everyone says it is. The haters tend to be the "consistency" freaks, and the trajectory of MA's discog over the years could have clued anyone in that consistency is not at the core of the band's identity. What I love about IDI is its goofiness--a rare and underappreciated personality trait in the extreme metal world, albeit one which dates back at least to Celtic Frost. I'd like to think of IDI as an expansion of metal's horizons in this way, but unfortunately the band quickly retreated from this new direction instead of embracing it.)
8. Heretic (This, not IDI, is where MA actually lost their way. It's not tight like the early albums, nor is it atmospheric like the previous release. It's just plodding, murky, and forgettable.)
9. Kingdoms Disdained (I haven't taken the time to fully absorb this one yet, but my first listen suggested that the band was dead set on putting the embarrassment of IDI behind them, and retreating firmly into a familiar territory that the audience would accept. To me, they're just digging themselves deeper into the hole of mediocrity that began with Heretic.)

 

[Talos of Atmora]

2.Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (This one I'm torn on because it has none of my favorite songs, but somehow I seem to get the greatest pure listening enjoyment out of it. While I tend to find atmosphere and "kickass" inversely related in MA's releases, the combination on FFttF works well for me.)

 

[Slayed Necros]

1. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
2. Altars of Madness
3. Covenant
4. Blessed Are the Sick
5. Gateways to Annihilation
6. Domination
7. Illud Divinum Insanus
8. Heretic

 

[Phylactery]

Note to self - don’t post when drunk! I vaguely remember posting in this thread, and I’m cringing at what I’ve written! Christ, I should probably clean these posts up.

 

[EspaDa]

1. Altars of Madness
2. Covenant
3. Domination
4. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
5. Gateways to Annihilation
6. Blessed Are the Sick
7. Heretic
8. Kingdoms Disdained
9. Illvd Divinvm Insanvs

 

[Krow]

1. Blessed Are the Sick
2. Altars of Madness
3. Gateways to Annihilation
4. Covenant
5. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
6. Domination
7. Heretic
8. Kingdoms Disdained
9. Illud Divinum Insanus

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Actually, I’m really fucking drunk and this post is not to be taken seriously at all (outside of the order, which I stand by). However, I was a bit annoyed at your reply in the 2008 thread that implied I have shit taste for including that split so high. After I’d taken the time to recommend stuff l thought may interest you. I’ve always respected your taste (if not always agreed with them) because you actually explain why you like what you like and you stick to your guns. Your response came across as rather passive aggressive.

No, you took it too harshly. All I was saying is that only two of those albums really impressed me on first listen. My perspective could easily change on some of them if I relisten to some of them. And I didn't think any of them sounded bad; all were at worst listenable. All I was saying is that if some of those were in the top 10 for a given year, then I wouldn't consider it a great year.

If Abominations is being included let me know and I will edit my list.

Considering nobody has listed it yet, it's looking like a "no" to me.

 

[Phylactery]

I probably did take it too harshly because I was drunk! But I honestly think it’s quite a good year. Better than 2004 for example, imo.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Note to self - don’t post when drunk! I vaguely remember posting in this thread, and I’m cringing at what I’ve written! Christ, I should probably clean these posts up.

You're a sweetie <3

 

[The Ozzman]

After thinking about it, the second Warfather album sounds more like a Morbid Angel album than Heretic does. The production hurts Heretic.

 

[alex76]

1. Altars of Madness
2. Blessed are the Sick
---------------------Brunelle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!---------------------------
3. Covenant
4. Domination
5. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
6. Gateways to Annihilation
7. Heretic <<< I think this is better than most say. It has its problems, but I think the guitar work saves it.
8. Kingdoms Disdained
9. Illud Divinum Insanus <<< Ugh!

 

[Bloopy]

1. Altars of Madness
2. Covenant
3. Gateways to Annihilation
4. Formulas Fatal to the Flesh
5. Blessed Are the Sick
6. Kingdoms Disdained
7. Domination
8. Heretic
9. Illud Divinum Insanus

 

[J.]

1. Covenant
2. Blessed are the Sick
3. Altars of Madness
4. Formulas Fatal to the Flash
5. Domination
6. Gateways to Annihilation