The Grass is Always Greener, or What I learned from the new Morbid Angel single

New Morbid Angel Track.  This four minute song sucked up an hour of my life.  An hour I will never see again, that could have been spent more productively, and more time still as I write this.

Yes, this is all my fault.  But I need to get this off my chest. 

So, the new Morbid Angel single leaked or dropped or was otherwise release into the unwashed masses today.  Because of this I learned how incredibly fickle fans are.  Having been listening to metal and having been involved in metal for a while, I shouldn't have been so surprised.    Let me start off by addressing what I thought.

Vincent's voice is a little raspier and less powerful.  But, like I said with new Autopsy earlier this year...it just kind of works.  I like it.  It gives the album a more unpolished, authentic feeling.  The production is a little cleaner than I'd hoped and the drum sound is...too clicky and triggered.  Overall though, it definitely SOUNDS like Morbid Angel.  It's not anything A-D, but it's certainly not bad, and I look forward to hearing the album.  Oh, Trey's solo? Orgasm city.


That said, I might accept a number of critiques, such as "this is boring, I don't like it, it doesn't strike me..."  Hell, I'd even accept "This isn't Altars."  Though, I don't know why anyone expects a nearly fifty year old man (who is close to my parent's age) to write the same album he'd write when he was in his twenties and furious with the world...  But the critiques I actually heard were some of the most baseless shit.. "this is a sell-out album? (yeah, you posted this on Metal Archives to about Domination.  What are they selling out for? $100 instead of $50?) " "This sounds like Born of Osiris."  I can't even address this.  You must be outside your mind.  "The album will have techno beats on it" And the other albums didn't have some filler tracks? And my favorite "This is the end of Tampa death metal." Well fine, we made it, and we'll take it away when we want!  True fans, eh?

I was just so surprised to see how much sniping was done over this album.  I feel like if the album did sound like Altars, the reviews would say "Did Trey and Dave live in a hut this whole time? Why aren't they with the picture?"  The production isn't filthy and 80s sounding.  But is that bad?  This is 2011.  When someone spends money to bring back the old sound, so to speak, it always seems to transparent.  Plenty of these old school worship bands exist.  Which is great, fine, well, good.  But I already own the innovative albums.  If I want to just jam something old school, I'll throw that on.  I wanna see the old guy do something new, or at least put out something they like.  To put out something solely to please the fans WOULD be selling out. 
Why can't Morbid just get credit for putting out some new tunes, finally?  Why can't someone just say "thanks for coming back after all these years, I'll listen to the tunes?"  Is it that hard to just listen to some new tunes and say "Nah, I don't like it," rather than getting all personal and irrational?

To me, a classic album is more than that.  MA's Domination is my favorite.  My first ever MA album.  When I played that album I was blown the fuck away.  It was so beautiful and angry.  The songs flowed seamlessly into one another.  I learned the words in a matter of hours and I hummed bass riffs for months.  Although Altars usually gets top billing, nothing can replace how I felt the first time I spun Domination.  Or how I feel when it comes on now.  It's more than an album, it's a memory.  It's a reflection of who I was at 15, a know it all shit living in Tampa, home of Death Metal.   It's not just a classic album, not just a piece of metal history, it's a part of who I am now.  I'd say the same for any other of my favorite albums.  Maybe some of you blogosphere people had a similar experience with Altars, Blessed, Covanent, even Formulas.  If you listen to a single with that in mind, how can anything ever written by that or another band come close?  Shouldn't tunes be judged on their own merit?  And even if you STILL hate the single, is it so hard to not be a total whiny ass about it?