Reviews list for Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick (1991)

After an incredible debut album, Morbid Angel had a seriously difficult task to try and outdo it. After all, Altars of Madness was by far and away the most intense and brutal death metal album ever released back in 1989, just dripping with classics from start to finish. While it's arguable whether Blessed Are the Sick is a better album than Altars of Madness, it's most definitely another brilliant, classic release that once again upped the ante for evil sounding death metal.

The production got a big boost from the debut, with the guitars, drums and vocals all much heavier and crunchier this time around. Dave's vocals are much more guttural rather than raspy. Pete Sandoval's drumming is out of this world and the riffs on just about every track are just jaw dropping! But what really stands out on this album is the level of intensity and excitement. Tracks such as Fall From Grace, Brainstorm and Unholy Blasphemies just make me want to go crazy and jump around smashing things. They are pure unadulterated darkness and energy and I love them immensely.

But what's also so great about Morbid Angel is their variety. While the above songs smash everything at high velocity, others such as Blessed Are the Sick are slower and crushingly heavy. Then there are brilliant instrumental pieces that are clearly created by talented musicians rather than just tacked on for the sake of filling time. Doomsday Celebration and Desolate Ways are moving pieces of work that I can listen to separately for pure enjoyment and In Remembrance is a perfectly fitting end to this amazing album. Essential!!!

Blessed Are The Sick" is still as relevant now as it was 20 + years ago, with its sonic wizardry, beefed up guitar sound (when compared with its predecessor at least) and the furious thunder of Sandoval on the drum kit driving forward this beast of a record. The complimentary lead work of Richard and Trey (Richard and his more melodic moments to temper Trey with his swarming, chaotic and sonic shredding) works superbly and you get a real sense that this is band much improved ability wise from their previous outing.

The maturity is evident and the whole package has a more serious edge to it with the album artwork grotesque and twisted like the sound of the considerably darker music within. The intro is a perfect opener with the almost engine like noise of some hellish machine made from crying children and grinding bones being revved up to floor the accelerator and destroy all in its path. By the time it gives way to opener proper "Fall From Grace" you are sat bolt upright waiting for the assault to happen and your are not going to be disappointed as the track smothers you in glorious low end marauding DM.

The build up to the title track is varied with each track managing to stand out as individual points of brilliance. The fury of "Brainstorm", the sudden slowed technique of "Rebel Lands", the horror film soundtrack keys of "Doomsday Celebration" and the frantic pace of "Day Of Suffering" all cement the foundations of the stairway up to "Blessed Are The Sick/Leading The Rats". The title track is a slower but epic descent into the bowels of Hades themselves the bottom end of every note pulling you further down into the darkness before the flutey ending adds a bestial cherry to the top of the hellish cup cake!

The title track acts a central pin for the whole record, it is not that this is the peak of the album as what follows it is just as intense and powerful as the rest of the album so far, but the title track does exactly what it is supposed to. It is the pillar running through the atmosphere, direction and experience of the whole album. This brings me on to the structure of the album as a whole, the already mentioned intro starts things off perfectly but the changes of pace are brilliantly scheduled, the haunting beauty of "Desolate Ways" with its picked acoustic strings is like a beautiful woman with an underlying darkness lay in field of scarred and twisted corpses and it stays with you long after the album has finished. "In Remembrance" is the perfect ending to the album, an acknowledgement that although the chaos is over things won't be the same again as a result of it.