Matthew Kelly1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear
#87: Morbid Angel – lllud Divinum Insanus: The Remixes (2012)
MATT KELLY doffs his hat to a record he describes as “a monumental tower of shit” and one of the funniest records ever.
Oh. My. God. Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow. People give the original 2011 release of this record a hard time, but this right here, this here, is magnitudes worse.
An astonishing three hours and 39 tracks of EDM reimaginings of Morbid Angel’s weakest material, IDITR isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard – it’s far too entertaining for that – but it may be the most unintentionally funny release yet encountered.
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Suddenly deciding that they’re Static X, one of death metal’s most legendary acts heads to the dance floor for a raved-up revisiting of their least popular album and the results are beyond humbling.
First of all, you know the good tracks on the album like ‘Blades For Baal’? Guess how many remixes of that you get? Zero. But never fear, you get six versions of the apocalyptically terrible ‘Too Extreme’, and an amazing 12 iterations of ‘I Am Morbid’. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds because after a while your brain starts to melt and hear the lyrics as “I am Morbius!” which is highly amusing.
Seriously though, this is an accidental comedy goldmine. Fire up the Evil Activities remix of ‘Radikult’ and I seriously challenge you not to giggle at the clueless beat drop at :26 where it just goes WHUMWHUMWHUMWHUMWHUMWHUM from a time before mixing or stereo dynamics. But even that isn’t as funny as the one at 3:06 with a garbage Eurotrash synthesiser screeching over it as MA vocalist David Vincent bellows about being “HARDCORE AND RADICAL”.
The album is funny from the get-go as Laibach’s opening take on ‘I Am Morbid’ begins with hard-to-take-seriously chamber music before an awful whining beat stomps it into the ground and “super spooky” Halloween laughter effects join in.
It’s hard to believe that something like Nachtmar’s revision of ‘Destructos Versus The Earth’ isn’t intentional parody. If the Spinal Tap guys did a bit with the band trying to have a dance crossover, it wouldn’t sound any different. Vincent is a good vocalist in a death metal context but against Nachtmar’s thin, weedy 20-years-ago production, he sounds awful. And Skold’s remix of ‘Profundis’ has somehow distorted the vocal so that it sounds like he’s roaring “GROW FUNGUS!”
What is going on in Black Strobe’s ‘Ten More Dead’ as the rhythm desyncs and collapses at :26 independent of the guitar? Is this even finished? Why is Black Lung’s ‘I Am Morbid’ stuffed with unpleasant tinnitus noises and fuzz?
The whole thing appears to be positioning itself as a soundtrack for some underground S&M club. It would work too and you’d save on whips and chains. All you’d need to do is push play on this album while the sadists enjoy it from the DJ booth.
I legitimately cried laughing. Anyone who likes a good musical trainwreck should consider this unmissable. A monumental tower of shit that I doff my hat to.
