walking upstream…
Morbid Angel
photo: gripweed · cc by-sa 3.0 ↗Morbid Angel
sourcesWikipedia — Morbid Angel (band history, lineup, discography) · Metal Hammer/Louder — "The demonic birth of Morbid Angel" (Mike Browning on Ice's cover set and the band's origin) · Death Metal Underground — Mike Browning interview, 2015 (Ice/Death Watch/Heretic timeline, early influences) · Bravewords — Trey Azagthoth interview (two-hand tapping and Van Halen's influence on his lead style) · Rolling Stone — Morbid Angel's Covenant at 25 (major-label death metal debut, MTV airplay)
In a Tampa garage in 1982, two teenagers named their band Ice — "like the icy winds of the abyss," drummer Mike Browning explained years later — and the covers set they built around Judas Priest, Scorpions, and Slayer's "Black Magic" fell away once guitarist Trey Azagthoth (born George Emmanuel III) began performing rituals from the Necronomicon: "the music really changed," Browning said. The band cycled through Death Watch and Heretic before settling, by late 1983, on Morbid Angel. David Vincent, who had financed the group's shelved 1986 debut, took over bass and vocals for 1989's Altars of Madness, a tremolo-driven, blast-beat record now treated as a foundational death metal statement. 1993's Covenant became the first death metal album on a major label, its "God of Emptiness" video reaching MTV; Azagthoth has anchored the band through every lineup since.
the sound in question
1989
Immortal RitesMorbid Angel
walk the tributaries ↓
Slayer1980s · Thrash metal
Before Morbid Angel had its name, the teenage band Trey Azagthoth and Mike Browning called Ice was already playing covers, and Browning later told Metal Hammer/Louder that "the fledgling band were covering Black Funeral by Mercyful Fate, Baphomet by Angel Witch and Slayer's Black Magic." That's Browning's memory, not Azagthoth's own account, but it places a specific Slayer song in Azagthoth's hands years before Altars of Madness, and its chromatic, downpicked riffing is the clearest thrash root under Morbid Angel's tremolo attack.
listen: upstream & here
1983
Black MagicSlayer
1989
Chapel of GhoulsMorbid Angel
listen forCue up Slayer's "Black Magic" next to Morbid Angel's "Chapel of Ghouls": both ride a chromatic, tremolo-picked riff over a nonstop double-kick pulse, but where Slayer's thrash tempo still resolves into recognizable song sections, Morbid Angel pushes the same riff shape toward a maelstrom, letting a shrieking lead break the riff apart rather than answer it, tempo climbing past anything Slayer's version attempts.
Van Halen1970s–80s · Hard rock / Heavy metal / Arena rock
Azagthoth names one guitarist, unprompted, across interviews spanning fifteen years. "I was fueled and fed by Eddie Van Halen when he first appeared," he told Metal Hammer in 1995. "To me he is the most important living guitar player there is... because he changed so much." An odd debt for a death metal originator to claim, but Azagthoth's sweeping, chaotic solos — flourishes that interrupt a riff rather than resolve it — trace straight back to that admission.
listen: upstream & heresource: Metal Hammer, 1995, reprinted at angemorbide.free.fr — Trey Azagthoth on being "fueled and fed" by Eddie Van Halen ↗
1978
EruptionVan Halen
1989
Immortal RitesMorbid Angel
listen forVan Halen's "Eruption" and Morbid Angel's "Immortal Rites" both stop the song to showcase the guitar itself. "Like the two hand tapping thing, Eddie Van Halen did it already years ago," Azagthoth said of the technique he grew up on — and on "Immortal Rites" that same appetite for invention surfaces as a solo that scatters across the fretboard rather than climbing toward a resolution, imagination prized over clean technique.
Frank Marino1970s · Hard rock / Blues rock / Psychedelic rock
Asked by Guitar World to name the players who shaped him, Azagthoth paired an expected name with an unexpected one: "I used to always talk about Eddie Van Halen, and he did inspire me in such a big way, but another guitarist who moved me bigtime while growing up was Frank Marino [of Mahogany Rush]." Marino's extended, Hendrix-indebted soloing on 1970s Mahogany Rush records gave Azagthoth an early model for playing outside a song's chord changes rather than inside them.
listen: upstream & heresource: Guitar World — "Dear Guitar Hero ↗
1975
Strange DreamsFrank Marino
1989
Maze of TormentMorbid Angel
listen forMahogany Rush's "Strange Dreams" and Morbid Angel's "Maze of Torment" share a willingness to let the guitar wander far from the riff underneath it: Marino stretches a phrase until it drifts loose from the chord progression, and Azagthoth's solo on "Maze of Torment" does the same at speed, breaking off from the riff into something closer to noise before it snaps back into the song's structure.