Throwback: “Where the Slime Live” by Morbid Angel!

Back in 1995 Earache Records were a label on the very cutting edge of the razor blade of pioneering Extreme Metal, pushing the envelope of bands in both Grindcore and Death Metal genres and gaining much respect for doing so. Lead by riff lord Trey Azagthoth, American Death Thrash pioneers Morbid Angel dropped just their fourth studio record in the twelve years since their formation in 1983 in “Domination” via the label, their revolving door of musicians seeming to limit their output considerably. This was the first album to feature Hate Eternal frontman Erik Rutan on guitars and keyboards; he exited stage left after this one only to return five years later for “Gateways To Annihilation“, while vocalist and bassist David Vincent exited at the end of the album touring cycle in 1996 to re-join after eight years of Steve Tucker steading the ship. Part of that was no doubt down to the band getting dropped by US label Giant Records despite selling 100,000 copies of the album in the US alone and instead inking a Worldwide deal with Earache who had previously only handled their European offerings. The album however remains something of a controversial beast as it saw the band move into more groove laden territory with slower and more atmospheric cuts compared to their previous works but one song remains insane – “Where the Slime Live“.