I’m sure you all know what Throwback Thursday means at this point. It’s pretty self-explanatory. And if you’ve missed the instruction manual this far into the game, I’m not gonna help you get caught up. Sorry not sorry. For the rest of you, I’ll spare you any kind of real introduction and get right into the good stuff. Let see what we managed to dig up this week:

Corey:

So I went a tad ridiculous last week with the GWAR bit, so I’m gonna go a bit more serious this time around and revisit an old classic. As Dan was so polite to remind us in this week’s Stage Dive, Morbid Angel is kinda shit now. But, as he also remind us, they were at one time feeding us solid death metal. You may need to go back a decade or two (most likely two), but because of albums like Domination and Covenant, these guys actually do hold a special place with me. So let’s go back to the latter (of the two listed, but it actually preceded Domination) and revisit arguably the most popular track on the album:

‘God of Emptiness’, performed August 18, 1995 in San Francisco. Talk about old school death metal. Their sound was just so big and sickly evil. Hard to really compare it to anything else. Especially in current death metal. ‘God of Emptiness’ was on Covenant which came out alllllll the way back on June 22, 1993. Almost 21 years ago. Holy shit. This album is pretty stacked when you think about it though. From ‘Rapture’ to ‘Pain Devine’ to ‘Angel of Disease’, there really aren’t many tracks I don’t enjoy. Hard to believe they fell as low as they did in 2011.

I’d like to mention that they also released a music video for this song that you can find here.  But, I don’t know, there’s something about an 18-plus year old video clip of the same song performed live that is just… better. And let’s be real… we’re never going to get this particular Morbid Angel back (thanks again for the reminder, Dan), so we may as well appreciate the good stuff in every form we can. Dan… your turn…

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Dan:

DAMMIT, THOSE DRUMS NEED MORE FAP, COREY. Either way, after going back and actually listening through Illud Divinum Insanus to help construct yesterday’s post, I definitely needed a reminder that Morbid Angel used to be good, so thanks for that. I, too, have decided on a live performance video–only instead of Evil D, I went with Iron Maiden. Here’s the live performance of “The Clansman” from the band’s Rock in Rio DVD:

It’s been 13 years since this DVD’s first release–and a good…eight or nine since I got my first copy–but a number of things still stand out to me. First: why–WHY?–did anyone ever let Steve Harris sit in the film editor’s chair? It feels like there are 45 camera cuts a minute in this video? I’m amazed I don’t get headaches trying to keep up with it. Secondly, Janick Gers takes a guitar solo…and it’s not completely hideous? In 95% of his solos, dude’s got a solid pick hand and a solid neck hand, but seems completely unable to get them to be solid together, in the same moment. This is most certainly an exception. When you consider the fact that he also takes a pretty damn good one in “Blood Brothers,” it just boggles the mind that, in a single concert, Janick could take two pretty tight leads.

But what sticks with me more than anything is how much better “The Clansman” sounds with Bruce Dickinson than it ever did with Blaze Bayley. To be perfectly fair, this was one of the stronger tracks of the Bayley era, but it’s a completely different tune with Bruce behind the mic. (The same can be said of “Sign of the Cross“) There’s a reason that whenever those two tracks appear ona Greatest Hits comp, they’re included as live versions with Bruce on vocals, and performances like this are precisely that reason. Phenomenal stuff.

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