MORBID ANGEL Vinyl Records and CDs

Morbid Angel represent just about everything a Death Metal fan could ask for, and everything a skeptic of the genre could think of to ridicule. Blinding tempos, ultraheavy riffs, beastly vocals, psychotic guitar solos and blasphemous lyrics about flesh and "sinful desires" -- these Floridian freaks have been dishing it all out in glorious excess since the mid-1980s. Their sincerity has often bordered on self-parody, and sometimes it just plain crosses the line, with David Vincent's inimitable, phlegm-covered grunts ("Whuuuuuhhh") as just one example. All chuckles aside, they back up the evil posturing as few others can: not only are they incredibly fast, technical musicians, but their songs are elaborate and well-constructed, making smart use of time and tempo changes as well as recurring themes and riffs. They also sound pretty, well, evil. Their early albums (Altars of Madness, Blessed Are the Sick, Covenant) remain classics of the genre and are still probably the best places to start, though they haven't exactly sloughed off in recent years.