"Blessed Are The Sick"

Morbid Angel - "Blessed Are The Sick"
    May 2, 1991
Producer(s): Morbid Angel

    In 1989 Florida Death Metal Icons Morbid Angel released their first full length studio record titled "Altars of Madness". To this very day it is considered one of the very first true Death Metal records. Containing complex riffing, drumming that is dominated by blast beats, very raw vocals and leads that were more chaotic than melodic.
    Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse describes the record best by saying "That whole album is so amazing.". So needless to say, fans and fellow bands were extremely hungry for their next record, 1991's "Blessed Are The Sick".
    In my eyes "Blessed Are The Sick" is the album that showed me Morbid Angel is the real deal, not one of those countless bands that will settle for making the same record again and again. The improvements on this record is like night and day.
    David Vincent (who is also the band's bassist) voice improved significantly, gaining a more guttural sound on this record while on the previous record his voice had a more 'thrashy' sound (found more so in acts like Kreator and Sodom two legendary thrash metal acts.).
    For me personally the greatest thing about this record was the fact that the band decided to produce this album themselves. Rather than hire another outside party who they couldn't explain to what they wanted to accomplish with this record. Quite frankly I think they made the right decision, as producers at the time would probably have been shocked at what the band had up their sleeves.
    "Blessed Are The Sick" showed a completely different side of the band. While still containing very fast tracks like "Brainstorm" and "Day of Suffering", the album had an overall slower sound then it's processer and contains very strong classical undertones throughout the record containing accoustic guitars and keyboards in certain sections (a rarity in the early years of Death Metal).
    Also, this record has a greater sense of melody which in my opinion comes from maturer songwriting and shows how much the band has improved in a little more than two years. True, while still containing the 'chaotic' leads as I mentioned before they are becoming of lesser use as the leadwork starts to blossom into more technical playing, you can clearly hear this in my favorite cut from this record "Fall From Grace". It is also prominent in the lightning fast track "Rebel Lands", as the lead section in that tune is a perfect mixture of melody and chaos rolled into one creating a very standout track on this record.
    However, while not my favorite track on the record, the album's title track is the best example of what Morbid Angel was looking to accomplish with this record. It shows the 'slower' sound of the record, David's improved vocals and main songwriter guitarist Trey Azagthoth's very quickly improving songwriting abilities, the outro of the song containing a very spooky classical sounding interlude that could have been written by Mozart himself.
      With "Blessed Are The Sick" Morbid Angel broke a lot of boundaries that many thought that couldn't be broken in the Death Metal genre without the risk of selling out. Morbid Angel did it very tastefully as "Blessed Are The Sick" remains a fan favorite in their discography to this very day. An album that will not be leaving my cd player for a long time.
My Killer Kutz: "Fall From Grace", "Unholy Blasphemies" & "Rebel Lands"