Album Review: Morbid Angel - Entangled In Chaos

I don’t have very many live albums in my album collection. The general consensus is that live albums are pretty bad, and death metal live albums are incredibly horrible.

I’ve yet to see Morbid Angel live, so I can’t really compare how they are live to their live album, but this album makes them sound very tight, with some small exceptions nearing the end of the album, probably due to fatigue. The sound quality of the instruments is really good, and everything sounds like you’d expect “Domination”-era Morbid Angel to sound like playing their old material live.

Something I found unfortunate, is that the banter between songs has been cut. Another thing that bothered me was the length of the album, as “Entangled In Chaos” is just under 40 minutes long. The short playing time suggests a direct support slot rather than a headlining gig, and certain favourite Morbid Angel songs aren’t played. From a personal standpoint, I was disapointed that there weren’t some more of the slow songs that Morbid Angel are famous for. Songs like “God Of Emptiness”, “Promised Land (World Of Sh*t)”, and “Where The Slime Live” aren’t played. Only one song from the album “Domination” is played live, which is unfortunate since it’s my favourite Morbid Angel album from the David Vincent era. Other people of course will have some songs they like which haven't been played live, which is unfortunate, as more songs could've been inclduded had "Entangled In Chaos" been recorded at a headlining show.

I’ve probably been ruined for live albums, since my first live album experience was part of a boxed set that contained A LOT of songs for that artist. So, I guess this is something "just for the diehard fans".

6/10

Morbid Angel
Morbid Angel At Earache Records