Covenant by Morbid Angel
Covenant is the third official full-length album by Florida based death metal band Morbid Angel. It was released on June 22, 1993. This album represented Morbid Angel's first foray into mainstream metal, through their contract with Giant Records. The music video for "God of Emptiness" was featured on Beavis and Butt-head and received airplay on MTV. The style of this album is more akin to the slower style of the previous album Blessed Are the Sick. Much of the lyrics for this album, written by David Vincent, could be considered Morbid Angel's most Occult and Satanic based. The album's cover image shows a page from The Book of Ceremonial Magic by Arthur Edward Waite to the right, and a reproduction of "The Pact of Urbain Grandier" on the left. According to Nielsen Soundscan, Covenant was the best selling death metal album during 2003, with sales of over 150,000 in the United States alone.
At the time of its release in 1993, Morbid Angel’s third album was probably the most extreme album to ever appear on a major label. As a result, this master class in death metal virtuosity infiltrated suburban living rooms via MTV’s <i>Headbangers Ball</i> and <i>Beavis and Butt-Head</i> with videos for “Rapture” and “God of Emptiness”. Guitarist Trey Azagthoth’s unorthodox and hyper-technical style produced some of the band’s most vertiginous material, while increased exposure helped make <i>Covenant</i> one of the top-selling death metal albums of all time.
