This is Part 13 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

MORBID ANGEL

Successful, immensely influential artists of long standing often find their creative freedom restricted by the shackles of their own success. What has worked in the past will likely work again, and that’s an insidious inducement to just repeat the pattern again and again. That’s the carrot, but there’s also a stick: Striking out onto a new path risks alienation of a dedicated fan base. Loyal adherents of an artist’s well-defined style may be too close-minded, too wedded to the past, to be receptive to experimentation.

Fortunately, not all successful artists fall prey to these carrot-and-stick inducements to stand pat. Some are brave enough and creative enough to throw off the shackles of their own success and strike out in brilliant new directions, to boldly go where others are too timid to tread. So it was with Morbid Angel’s 2011 album, Illud Divinum Insanus, which translates to “fuck you, we doin’ this thang anyway.” Continue reading »