TREY AZAGTHOTH





Photo used w/ kind permission from
The Official Morbid Angel Website"

Copyright 1984-1998

"Ghouls who pray the death of God,
Destroy Jehovah's church,
Vomit upon the cross,
And burn the book of lies...
Yog sothoth evil one,
Come forth & taste the blood,
Infant entrails,
Are hung upon the twisted cross..."

Shocking, huh!?!? Ahh, the happy little songs they sing! Once you past all the vocals about "Satan doing his best work", you can then focus on the extraordinary guitarwork of Trey Azagthoth. Although, he mostly plays a Hamer 6-string Flying V, he does break out his Ibanez UV7BK 7-string w/ green pickguard (see pic) for some of the most bone-crushing, bowel-shaking guitarwork around! His sound is this:

1 part Death metal
1 part Eddie Van Halen's tapping technique
1 part Brian May's multi-layered guitar orchestration


Rhythm Guitar: Trey typically writes in 2 tempos: blazing fast & slow like a slug! In his faster compositions, you will have no doubt that only a guy possessed by the devil himself can play that fast & NOT get a double-dose of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome! :-) His slow songs are the best though! Songs like God of Emptiness & Where the Slime Lives deliver a churning multi-layered low-end growl that will scare the hell out of (or INTO) you! :-)

Lead Guitar: The lead playing is very sparatic, but there is a well-thought plan for each solo. He praises Eddie Van Halen & W.A. Mozart as his prime influences. Both influences are very prevelent. I think the best example of of his solo technique is in the song "Sworn to the Black" (track from Covenant).
Overall, it's worth checking out, if you can handle death metal vocals.


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