morbid angel - gateways to annihilation

heavy and crushing - the way i like my morbid angel. originally released in 2000, this is a(nother) white vinyl reissue. earache records. 2023.

morbid angel - formulas fatal to the flesh

not the best match if you look at cover art and vinyl colour but it was another distro score, which spares me the agony of import fees from the united kingdom. earache records. 1998/2023.

morbid angel - covenant

finally a colour vinyl re-press that was available through german distros. kick-ass album on a kick-ass vinyl pressing. earache records. 1993/2023.

morbid angel - blessed are the sick

after i luckily won an ebay auction for an early pressing of the first morbid angel full length "altars of madness", a hunting fever within me broke loose. i fully immersed myself in early nineties death metal. especially in earache records and roadrunner records stuff. the problem is that those first pressings tend to be on the expensive side. so i searched obsessively several sources for metal vinyl on the internet. one option was ebay kleinanzeigen. it is a subsidiary of ebay and is actually for local advertisements but some of the sellers do ship their offerings as well.

so i found this seller from berlin who had a few interestings bits and among them there was "blessed are the sick" from morbid angel. it is the band's second full length and was released in 1991 on earache. after the seller confirmed that he had a first press to offer, we wrapped up a deal and a few days later my copy arrived at my doorstep. musically this album got slower and chunkier in riffs. i really like that. especially the opener "fall from grace" and the title track "blessed are the sick" are unbelievably strong.

the b-side unfortunately can't really hold up to the a-side but three out of six songs are re-recorded material from their 1986 demo "abominations of desolation". the original pressing comes in a slip sleeve instead of the gatefold of the re-issue. i prefer this version because the gatefold shows a picture of the band. mehh, give me some new artwork or something but i don't need a picture of the dudes all over the gatefold inner. the cover artwork looks really sinister and is a painting crafted by painter and occultist jean delville entitled "le trésors de satan" (the treasures of satan). earache records. 1991.

morbid angel - altars of madness

that "war master" record from bolt thrower which i got from ebay a few weeks before, kind of kick started a new obsession. early nineties death metal. in a way i was already riding this wave with the constant re-issues of the death back catalogue by relapse records and the early suffocation records re-issued by listenable records. but this time it hit me with full spead ahead. i was digging into the early bolt thrower stuff and from that point into the early earache records releases and then into the roadrunner records death metal heyday. so many cool stuff. i also recognised pretty quick that original pressings from that time don't come cheap.

ebay had a lot of early nineties death metal to offer in the last weeks and so, among many outbids, i was able to snag a very nice version of morbid angel's debut full length "altars of madness". morbid angel are one of the originators of the florida death metal sound that was swapping the earth at the time. this album however still has a good portion of slayer thrash in the mix. the band really found their style on the follow-up "blessed are the sick". that fact doesn't compromise my appreciation for"altars of madness" a bit. i enjoy it all the way through. check out this rager here.

this copy isn't a first press. the record was released in 1989 and around 1991 and 1992 earache re-pressed some crucial titles of their back catalogue on nice white splatter vinyl. today this colour-way would surely be named marble vinyl but anyway, it looks absolutely lovely. i scored this baby for way under the going rate on discogs but popsike told me that the price wasn't unusual considering the more recent auctions on ebay. whatever, i am more than happy with the condition of the vinyl in particular. there is something about those early pressings, i will try to get more classics. love those tasks, it makes collecting real fun. 2000 copies made. earache records. 1989/1991.