MORBID ANGEL: 'Illud Divinum Insanus' First-Week Sales Revealed

"Illud Divinum Insanus", the new album from Florida-based extreme metal veterans MORBID ANGEL, sold around 3,600 copies in the United States in its first week of release to enter The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 141. The effort marks MORBID ANGEL's first CD to feature bassist/vocalist David Vincent since 1995's "Domination".

MORBID ANGEL's previous album, "Heretic", opened with around 3,900 units back in October 2003. That CD has shifted 31,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

"Domination" has sold 99,000 units so far while 1993's "Covenant" which was MORBID ANGEL's first major-label release through Giant Records has shifted nearly 153,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

"Illud Divinum Insanus" was released on June 7 (one day earlier internationally) via Season of Mist. The cover artwork was designed by Gustavo Sazes and can be viewed below.

"Illud Divinum Insanus" track listing:

01. Omni Potens
02. Too Extreme!
03. Existo Vulgor
04. Blades for Baal
05. I Am Morbid
06. 10 More Dead
07. Destructos Vs. the Earth / Attack
08. Nevermore
09. Beauty Meets Beast
10. Radikult
11. Profundis - Mea Culpa

"Illud Divinum Insanus" was made available in the following formats:

* Wooden foldout box
* Metal starpak CD (outside North America)
* Deluxe digipak CD (North America only)
* Double gatefold LP with download card
* Jewel case CD
* Digital download

The wooden foldout box is a triptych made of solid fine wood with all panels engraved, and includes the following items:

* "Illud Divinum Insanus" CD in real leather-bound book
* "Illud Divinum Insanus" double gatefold LP in colored heavy weight (180 grams) vinyl, different from the regular LP edition
* Two black candles with red wax Blasphegram and their holders
* Incense burner with incense
* Exclusive poster
* Exclusive full-color t-shirt with back print

In a recent interview with AOL's Noisecreep, MORBID ANGEL bassist/vocalist David Vincent stated about "Illud Divinum Insanus", "It's awesome, absolutely awesome . . . We made a masterpiece. I am going to call it that. There is not one bad track on this record. Of course I am going to say that, but I don't normally say such things. It is very unique and very diverse. We didn't go through the normal channels with production, so it's that's much more special because of the decisions we made."

He added, "We have grown out of the moniker of death metal. We call ourselves extreme music. There are too many boxes to put it in so many descriptors! We play extreme music and it encompasses everything from incredibly fast and articulate fretboard gymnastics to the sickest, most moaning of riffs, to the usual things we do. We take it for a twist."

In a brand new interview with Decibel magazine MORBID ANGEL guitarist Trey Azagthoth was asked if he was concerned that the band's fans might not necessarily be psyched about "Illud Divinum Insanus"'s techno-industrial sensibilities. "I'm not worried about it at all because I don't do it for others' approval," he replied. "And I think all the real fans of this band understand that already. We don't check into the scene to see what scene people accept or don't accept. Me and David did an interview when 'Altars' came out where I said the same thing: We don't check into the latest book of cool to figure out where we're gonna go with our stuff. We look inside ourselves, and I think that's what fans of the band have come to expect. And I think they appreciate that, because they know it's as real as it gets."

Added David Vincent: "When we first came out with 'Blessed Are The Sick', people thought it was really different. It took them a long time to embrace it. And that's fine. After everyone bagged on that record for two years and subsequently started sounding like that, we got signed to Warner and everybody's immediate comments were, 'Sellout!' But then 'Covenant' was the fastest, angriest record we had done. So, we challenge ourselves musically and we challenge our listeners. There are plenty of bands that have a really simple, easy formula, and you can predict exactly what you're gonna get on every record. We've never been that way, and there's no reason to start now."

"The way we go about doing what we're doing now is no different than the way we went about doing 'Altars Of Madness'. We played the shit out of our instruments, tapped into our creativity, and delivered. And that's exactly what we did on the new record. We could've gone back through our catalog and said, 'OK, this song and this song did really well for us.' And then we could've just rewritten them. But we didn't do any of that nothing like it. We grew once again. It's not that big of a change, but people are gonna hear things they're not used to hearing. And like I said, it's still very extreme."

"Illud Divinum Insanus" artwork:

Photo credit: Alex Solca