Morbid Angel
June 16, 2017
Regent Theater – Los Angeles, CA
Morbid Angel is a death metal band from Florida, USA. They are widely considered to be one of the biggest death metal bands of all time. In 2015, the band entered a small hiatus when original singer/bassist David Vincent and everyone else except founding member and guitarist Trey Azagthoth were announced to be no longer part of the band. Not too long later, it announced that Former Morbid Angel vocalist/bassist Steve Tucker (1996-2003) would be rejoining the band along with two more new members. Morbid Angel announced their first tour with the lineup and also announced a new album was on its way. On this tour, Azagthoth mentioned that they would only be playing songs from Tucker’s Morbid Angel era and not Vincent’s. Many fans were displeased while others welcomed the idea. Los Angeles fans were so excited to have Morbid Angel return that the event sold out ahead of time.
Suffocation is a death metal band from New York, USA. On June 9th, 2017, they released their eighth studio album, …Of the Dark Light. Suffocation came out and started the show with Thrones of Blood. In true death metal fashion, the fans went wild 
as they moshed to Suffocation‘s fast and brutal music involving the guitar power and speed of guitarist’s Charlie Errigo and the band’s only original member, Terrance Hobbs. Pierced From Within was the second song played and is one of the band’s best songs and the fans kept moshing away to some classic death metal. One thing about the band which always bums out fans is that original vocalist Frank Mullen no longer tours with the band full time. He will record the songs on the albums, but is unable to tour with the band due to his day job and so only appears once in a great while such as one-off festival appearances with the band. On this tour, vocalist Kevin Muller from The Merciless Concept would be handling vocal duties. Suffocation played more death metal tracks such as: Your Last Breaths, Clarity Through Deprivation, and Catatonia. Muller made a quick speech on how he was overwhelmed by the response from the fans that the band was receiving and how Los Angeles has been the craziest crowd on the tour so far. To end the show, Suffocation played their most famous song Infecting the Crypts and it drove fans wild with an even bigger mosh pit breaking out and crowd surfers kept security up front busy.
By now the venue was at full capacity with little room to be able to walk without having to squeeze past people. Morbid Angel came out and started the show with Summoning Redemption. The heavy intro to the song was good to where lots of head banging from fans started and the moshing once again commenced. Bil Ur-Sag was the second song played and is from the 1998 album Formulas Fatal to the Flesh and is also one of the band’s popular songs. Tucker’s return to the band was a nice treat for old school Morbid Angel fans as well as fans who never got a chance to see the previous Tucker era. With a new album coming out, Morbid Angel treated fans to a new song and it was called, Warped. Fans seemed to enjoy it and surely can’t wait for the new album. Morbid Angel treated the fans to nothing but death metal as they slayed the audience by playing killer tracks such as: Curse the Flesh, Prayer of Hatred, Nothing Is Not, and He Who Sleeps. Fans stayed active the whole night and the mosh pit in the middle of the floor only seemed to grow with time. Crowd surfers were still appearing from every direction so security were sure to be sure to catch them. Tucker announced that they only had one song left to play and thanked the crowd for coming out. The final track of the night was Umulamahri. Fans let out any remaining energy they had and showed the legendary Morbid Angel that they appreciated coming to Los Angeles. Morbid Angel left the stage and fans will surely await for their return.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Morbid Angel
Suffocation
