I'll bet you're looking at the above photo and thinking 'Hey, that's Morbid Angel, but where's Dave? Who's the dude on the end with the cascading hair??'. Am I right?
Those of you with short, or long, term memory issues...you know why...may not remember that from 1997 until 2004 the bassist/vocalist position in Morbid Angel was occupied with aplomb by one Steve Tucker, following Diamond Dave Vincent's decision to drag up in a latex minidress and climb inside his wife's purse.
.....I mean, seriously. C'maaaaan, who would YOU rather have fronting the worlds premiere Death Metal band? That 'dude', or THIS dude -
NO. FUCKIN'. CONTEST. Diamond Dave looks like he should go join The Kovenant or somesuch. I certainly blame him for the fact that the forthcoming Morbid Angel single 'Nevermore' will have a fucking Combichrist remix as the B-side. Fuckin' mall goth assclown. Jeepers.
Aaaaaaanyway, Steve Tucker. So, yeah, the dude comes in from one of the gazillion DM bands named Ceremony and totally outclasses Vincent from the get-go. None of that semi-gothic moaning, and none of the ludicrous Crue-esque posturing, just heads-down brutal Death fuckin' Metal.
(Apologies for the cheezorama image above, what did you expect from Youtube?)
See? Brutal as fuck, and check out the lyrics in ancient Sumerian - guturral, terse and barbaric, hell, ALL Death Metal should be rendered thusly.
So, Steve stuck around for two albums , 1998s 'Formulas Fatal To The Flesh' - the opening track of which is above - and 2000s 'Gateways to Annihilation', which is some slow, crawling, sick shit. It goes without saying that they are my two favourite Morbid Angel albums.
In 2001, Tucker left, citing 'personal reasons' and was temporarily replaced by Hate Eternal's Jared Anderson, only to be dragged back kicking and screaming for 2003s disappointing 'Heretic', which is NO-ONE'S favourite Morbid Angel album.
It didn't last, and Tucker left again in 2004, to be replaced by the returning David vincent. Sadly.
Following his time as MORBID ANGEL'S BEST FRONTMAN, Steve ended up fronting terrible ex-death metaller/rawk rejects Lowa, who also featured some dude who was in Nile and two other guys who should know better. Apparently Steve has since come to his senses, quit Lowa acrimoniously, and 'retired from music'. Yeah, right.
He does have ONE last Death metal-related gasp in him though, as he's involved with ex-Mayhem/current Aura noir guitarist Rune Eriksen (AKA Blasphemer) and Cryptopsy drummer/scene traitor Flo Mournier in some kind of 'art' project 'masterminded' by 'artist' and 'graphic designer' Nader Sadek, who appears to be several years late in jumping on the Black Metal bandwagon, according to this rather laughable clip...
KTL this AIN'T.
In memory of this, my favourite period of time in Morbid Angel's history, I've upoladed 'Formulas...' and 'Gateways...' below, just in case you happened to miss 'em, or just plain didn't give 'em the time of day way back when. Download, listen, enjoy...
MAHUMMUHU GAL-GAL ME-GAL-GAL-ZU GA HUL AMAH-USHUMGAL-ANNA ME-GAL-GAL-ZU GA HUL!!!
(Buy it here, loathe as I am to give Earache any business)
my father the forsaken,
the king of blasphemy
(Again, buy it here, from the label who sold Morbid Angel's mastertapes on ebay)
Now that Dave's back in the leather pants at the front of the stage, let's try to remember Steve Tucker as he was when he was MORBID ANGEL'S BEST FRONTMAN...
...and not how he was when last seen...
(Incidentally, what IS it with people who leave Morbid Angel becoming an embarrassment? I mean, Dave Vincent becomes publicly pussy-whipped - LITERALLY -, Steve Tucker turns into some dude who looked like he wasn't good enough to be in Creed, and Richard Brunelle goes....well....a bit mental...check out the bands he likes. Not good. At all.)
Holy christ I'm tempted to add a permanent link to Brunelle's website on IC. Funniest shit I've EVER seen.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, I think it should be pointed out that Earache sold the CD master tape (the one you send to the CD manufacturing plant), not the original studio master tapes.
ReplyDeletehttp://askearache.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-sell-morbid-angel-master-tapes.html
That's as maybe, but they still suck - even though they've attempted to claw back credibility by signing Hour of 13, who really should have known better.
ReplyDeleteFinally, someone who recognizes Tucker's supremacy over fancy-prancy posh racist (so I'm told - what's the story on that, really?) Evil D... he had something in the early 90's, but that's it - Covenant and Domination in all their glory but what did Vincent really do except write some poor lyrics? It's all about Trey in the end (and Eric Rutan! God Of The Forsaken, Hateworks - goddamn!). Morbid Angel needs an abysmal monster, not a horny übermensch.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
I think Dave is a racist in that pompous latter-day Church Of Satan kinda way - y'know, professes his superiority over all but when cornered admits it's all just bluster and he's never met anyone black. Whateve else he is, he's clearly a vast embarassingly dated tool.
ReplyDeleteDave is just sooooo much better! Ignoramuses!
ReplyDeletewolfman is a horny übermensch.
ReplyDeleteFor a real treat go back and read all the "Thank you lists" in the Morbid albums. I kept my copy of Heretic only because the lists and crazy ranting in the Cd booklet are amazing. American Movie amazing. Living on a bus with those maniacs would have driven anyone to madness, faster than the face of "The thing that should not be".
ReplyDeleteFlo Mournier and Cryptopsy, what an epic disappointment.
ReplyDeleteThat cheezoid image from the Youtube video is from the Magic card Rakdos the Destroyer. I have that Magic card.
ReplyDeleteTrue Story - I am in no way surprised by that. Will - epic is an UNDERSTATEMENT, and Alex - CCG's = FALSE. ONLY RPG's ARE RRRRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAAL!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm an ex-roleplayer, watchoogonnado'bout it? HEH.
Is that a Body Glove tattoo on his arm?
ReplyDeletePUSHEAD, FOOL!!
ReplyDelete....unless he's wearing a flesh coloured body glove wetsuit under his shirt.....which would be more of a 'Dave Vincent' thing to do, really.
ReplyDeleteI heard Dave Vincent used to work as a hooker to pay for his crack habit.
ReplyDeleteThat would in no way surprise me.
ReplyDeleteI knew I wasn't the only one lamenting about Tucker's outing MA.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same about "Formulas" and "Gateways". Outstanding records which are so-fuckingly underrated. It's no fucking justice.
Regards from Chile :)
Having given the new 'Morbid Angel' the ONE and ONLY listen it's gonna get from me, I feel totally vindicated in my championing of Tucker over Vincent. The new material is SO far away from Morbid Angel that they really ought to have changed the name of the band. What a tragic fucking waste.
ReplyDeleteDon't turn your backs on such a good group they gave us so much yes they may not be as good as they were but what they did give it was greatness. You set the standard for death metal so we should be thanking them you can't fault a musician for wanting to try new shit.just keep playing the old stuff but don't dog them.try it on vynil
ReplyDeleteDon't turn your backs on such a good group they gave us so much yes they may not be as good as they were but what they did give it was greatness. You set the standard for death metal so we should be thanking them you can't fault a musician for wanting to try new shit.just keep playing the old stuff but don't dog them.try it on vynil
ReplyDelete