Morbid Angel - Gateways to Annihilation

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Free Music Notes for Gateways to Annihilation

Free Music Review: About as different from FFF as can be (and still be "DM").
Hit: 5 Stars

There are several common threads in the reviews of Gateway: it's slower; it's heavier; Steve Tucker's voice is better than on FFF; Trey's solos are better (or not as good, depending on the reviewer); the engineering on Gateways is better/worse than FFF, depending on which review you read (although most seem to give the production nod to Gateways). When you compare these albums it seems obvious that MA's intent was for the two to be very different.

Firstly, there's no question that Gateways has slower songs overall, so if you insist upon a Death Metal album that's mostly played at breakneck speed, you may very well be disappointed with Gateways. However, if you can deal with some slower tempos, I think that the people who say that Gateways is heavier are right. This has some of the HEAVIEST guitar sounds you will ever here on a metal recording, almost sounding a little like down-tuned "doom metal" in some places, owing partly to the fact that the sound production is not quite as thick on Gateways, which gives the lower, deeper sounds more room to resonate. You might think that a thicker, more opaque recording always makes for a heavier sound, but Morbid Angel knows its stuff well enough to know that if you really want some depth to the sound, you need a little transparency, and the low guitar chords on this recording have an almost subterranean depth. The other reason the guitar sound is heavier is that Eric Rutan is back after Trey handled all of the guitars on FFF; and having the second guitar definitely makes for a heavier sound here. It seems that the one guitar approach on FFF was geared toward creating one of MA's fastest albums, whereas they decided to follow that up with perhaps their heaviest. I really like how fast Trey and Pete "air out" the guitar and drums on FFF (nowhere has Sandoval sounded more like his nickname, "Commando"), but I also really enjoy the interplay of Trey and Eric on Gateways, and the almost seismic heaviness of the guitar sound they produce. With regard to the guitar solos, again, it's a question of whether or not you insist upon nothing but fast solos. Trey's solos tend to be faster and shorter on FFF, but they tend to be longer and more developed with some great, arcane-sounding eastern modalities that are even more evident than on FFF. Rutan gets into the act with some good solos as well, and I personally favor a dual guitar approach myself, especially when it includes some dual soloing.

Secondly, there's Tucker's voice. To me, he sounds a lot like Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura)on Gateways, whereas he has a more generic Death Metal growl on FFF. Although I listen to quite a bit of DM, it's mostly for the guitars, and I've never cared much for most of the "vokills." However, I find Tucker's voice on Gateways to have developed more of a "style," and since Max C. has always been one of the few "extreme metal" vocalists that I can deal with, I definitely like Tucker's style on Gateways better. Also, the fact that the voice is less of a growl on Gateways means that you can hear the lyrics better, if you're into that (and Morbid Angel definitely has some of the "least mindless" lyrics in DM).

As far as the comments made by some reviewers about MA becoming more progressive or experimental, because of some of the instrumental interludes on these albums, I don't think this is much of an issue. Personally, I think most of these interludes are kind of cool, but if you don't like them, you can program them out and you've still got very full albums. I think the inclusion of these episodes lends some authenticity to the personal mythologies (Sumerian/Mesopotamian) that they're trying to explore with their music. The raw, primeval power of metal lends itself well to exploring the dark mysteries of a broad range of ancient mythologies, and I admire Morbid Angel for daring to move beyond the Satanic cliche' which many metal bands stay stuck in, and into more fertile and unexplored realms. I think that FFF and Gateways are easily Morbid Angel's best, and most developed, albums. It's really amazing that these guys have managed to stay on top of their game for so long, and these albums show that they are still the best at what they do.

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