Year Of Metal #081: Morbid Angel - Covenant
Nearly 80% through this project, it’s probably fair to say I’m never going to be a fully paid up death metal guy. It’s just a bit much for a lily-livered chap like me, too grizzly and scary and maybe a touch too silly for me to get on board with. That said, I have listened to a couple of records now that are considered milestones in the subgenre, and when I’ve got the cream of the crop put in front of me, sure - I can see the appeal.
This 1993 album came out at the peak of Morbid Angel’s powers - they made it onto Beavis And Butthead, for context - and I appreciate the (relatively speaking) restraint in their approach. They don’t seem to feel obliged to fill every second of every song with noise and mayhem. Opener “Rapture” thrashes and rages, the drums and guitars moving in step, but there are gaps and grooves to the sound. I like vocalist David Vincent, too - he’s a grizzly old growler but he’s not devolving into fully animalistic noises, the types of which I imagine prove deal breakers for some people trying to listen to death metal. The tune lurches around barely in control and sounds even charmingly shambolic at times, especially when the silly, squealing solo kicks into action.
Indeed it’s hard to overstate just how ridiculous the guitars sound at times on Covenant, and I mean that in an at least enjoyable way in every instance. “Angel Of Disease” is a banger for the less death-prone among us as it’s far closer to thrash or even straightforward hardcore, were it not for Trey Azagthoth’s batshit guitars. It’s as though he gets bored putting in a shift on the palm muted pacey bedrock riff, so makes his instrument sound as alien as possible at every chance he gets. The solos stumble and rush into life like they’ve woken up late for work, and he punctuates every four bars or so with a divebomb or sudden squall.
The ability of the whole band to mix things up is probably what sets this out as one of death metal’s best LPs. As a subgenre you’re not exactly working with an unlimited palette; songs are expected to sound and be written and played a certain way, and no doubt there’s a gatekeeping aspect to metal as there is any niche interest. But Covenant often find their finest success when they slow things right down, like on the pounding intro to “World Of Shit (The Promised Land)” or the sensory overloading coda to “Lion’s Den”. The latter in particular is a great showcase for Azagthoth, whose simple, bendy riff sounds like a leitmotif for a horror movie killer.
My favourite track, though, is one of the most overwhelmingly aggressive cuts on the record. “Sworn To Black” is thunderous stuff, with Pete Sandoval destroying his kick drum at an ankle busting rate, and the vocals are as gruff and grizzled as they get. All the while, though, the swinging polyrhythms feel so unusually playful for a style of music so explicitly built on horror, punishment, and aggression.
With the caveat that the record dropped in a golden period for the music business - especially when it came to alternative music - it’s still quite remarkable that Covenant shifted quite so many copies (a reported 150,000 in the USA alone). And yet, perhaps it isn’t. This may sound like a veiled diss to a band of dyed in the wool metallers doing their thing - it certainly isn’t intended as such - but if you were looking to dip your toe into extreme gear, I couldn’t think of a much better album than this one. While still playing gruesome, uncompromising songs, they’ve somehow recorded a fundamentally accessible death metal album.
