OUR LIST OF 2022’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 7): GOATWHORE, GAEREA, GLOSON

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2022  5 Responses »
Jan 102023
 

Not for the first time, and it won’t be the last time, I picked today’s three additions to this list by focusing on song candidates by bands whose names begin with the same letter. That made the selection process less mind-boggling for me. It’s not a recipe for overall success, because I don’t have enough days left to cover every letter in the alphabet, and because not all letters are equally deserving in this context. But it worked well for today, when these three bands jumped out at me as I gazed at the Gs. Or, we could say I managed to find the G spot.

GOATWHORE (U.S.)

Angels Hung From the Arches of Heaven was another album where we could throw a dart at the track list and come up with a song for this list wherever it landed. As DGR wrote in his extensive review, it’s another testament to a level of consistency that has made Goatwhore a “cultural touchstone within the heavy metal music community,” providing “big riffs, big sections, and room-filling music matched equally in terms of heaviness,” and with “just enough surprise to keep things exciting”. Continue reading »

GOATWHORE: “ANGELS HUNG FROM THE ARCHES OF HEAVEN”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Nov 012022
 

(Here’s DGR‘s extensive review of the new album by Goatwhore, out now on Metal Blade Records.)

There was a block of time during the decade that was the 2010s when it seemed like Goatwhore were unstoppable and ever-present. They released consistently good-to-great albums like clockwork and few bands out there embodied the concept of “professional homeless person” quite like this hard-touring group. It seemed like they were always on the road and ready to answer the call if there was a show that needed its ass saved from a last-minute cancellation. Hell, there were times when the band wouldn’t even be part of an event yet would somehow pop up within the area because what the hell else were Goatwhore going to do with their free time? Not play live?

That’s why sitting down and gazing over the numbers gap between the group’s 2017 Vengeful Ascension and their latest salvo in early October, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, and seeing the five-year mark just looks wild, especially for a band whose previous longest gap between releases was at best on the long side of three. One could only expect that we’d see a release from Goatwhore a whole hell of a lot sooner had we not had to effectively put the world on pause due to a worldwide plague, because otherwise the Goatwhore camp probably would have been out on the road and writing just as hard as they normally do. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: GOATWHORE, EXHUMED, ATEIGGÄR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Aug 302022
 


Goatwhore – Photo by Stephanie Cabral

 

This Tuesday roundup of new music will be shorter than usual, but hopefully you’ll still find it sweet. Without further ado…

GOATWHORE (U.S.)

Goatwhore have a well-deserved reputation for being one of the hardest-gigging bands around, and every one of the half-dozen times I’ve seen them they’ve played as if it would be their last show. You always get your money’s worth from these dudes when they hit a stage. But somehow they found time amidst all the touring — no doubt aided by the pandemic shutdown — to punch out a new album where, once again, angels will fear to tread. The title of this one is Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven.

It’s been a five-year wait since Vengeful Ascension, and Goatwhore have made up for that with 47 minutes of music. The album also includes the work of a new bass player (Robert “TA” Coleman) and it’s the band’s first production with Kurt Ballou who worked along with producer Jarrett Pritchard in his second effort with the band. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2017’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 11): PARADISE LOST, GOATWHORE, ZIGGURAT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2017  3 Responses »
Jan 242018
 

 

Welcome to Part 11 of this list. Without further introductory verbiage, let’s proceed with three more tracks.

PARADISE LOST

Medusa was one of those albums that popped up repeatedly in the Top 5 of year-end lists published by print zines and “big platform” web sites that we included in our year-end LISTMANIA extravaganza. Some of the albums in the upper reaches of those rankings were suspect, having the whiff of big-name pandering. But not this one… this one deserved all the honors it got (and of course it appeared on many of our own year-end lists).

To paraphrase something that Andy Synn wrote in his review of the album, it was almost shocking to realise that somehow, almost thirty years on since the release of their debut, Paradise Lost were right back at the very top of their game. As Andy also opined, Medusa is “utterly monstrous” — “one of the darkest, heaviest, and doomiest albums of their career”. Continue reading »

GOATWHORE: “VENGEFUL ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 012017
 

 

(Here’s Wil Cifer’s review of the new album by Goatwhore from New Orleans, which will be released on June 23rd via Metal Blade Records.)

Seven albums in, and the swampy metal machine known as Goatwhore continues to press forward with a formula that would have gone flat for other bands a couple of albums ago. I am not sure when they have had the time to record anything, as these guys seem to be constantly on the road, so the fact they squeezed these sessions in is impressive in its own right.

This album is not a wild deviation from their sound, but the songwriting has sharper focus and, with their sound man producing, it plays off their strength, which is the energy of their live shows. This might also be one of the band’s most melodic albums, despite the fact it also seems to be Goatwhore fully embracing their death metal side.  Normally their sound is characterized by being a hybrid swirl of sub-genres. Here, beginning with the first track, the aggression locks in everything in such a way that the hooks are shoved down your throat. Continue reading »

SEEN BUT (MOSTLY) NOT HEARD: TAU CROSS, GOATWHORE, OF WOLVES, F41.0, URN, ROTTEN SOUND, COSMIC REEF TEMPLE, SOLAR TEMPLE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
May 242017
 


Tau Cross

 

As I begin typing these words I’m on an airplane just entering the air space of Michigan, and if all goes well will be landing in Baltimore in 1 hour and 52 minutes. Maryland Deathfest awaits.

I spent the first part of the flight scrolling through the NCS in-box, adding to my very long list of music to check out. As you know, that’s a ridiculously long list. I don’t expect to get much blogging done while MDF is in progress, so I impulsively decided to write this thing.

Since the wi-fi on this jet isn’t good enough to permit streaming, I haven’t heard most of what I’m putting in this post, nearly all of which I found during that e-mail reconnaissance. I encourage you to leave a comment with reactions, since I have almost none (so far). Continue reading »

GOATWHORE: NEW ALBUM DETAILS AND NEW TRACK REVEALED (“VENGEFUL ASCENSION”)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
May 032017
 

 

Rather than save this news and new music for our next round-up, I decided to strike while the iron is hot. It is Goatwhore, after all, and their consistency both on record and on stage has always been impressive. Plus, we’re huge fans.

First, here’s the news, announced not long ago: The band’s new album (their seventh) is named Vengeful Ascension. It’s a ten-track, 41-minute record, featuring eye-catching cover art, and it will be released by Metal Blade on June 23rd. The press release we received also included this description of the album’s lyrical themes: Continue reading »

FIVE OF MY FAVOURITE… GOATWHORE TRACKS

 Listmania  3 Responses »
Oct 292015
 

Goatwhore 2014

 

(If you read your humble editor’s earlier post today, you’ll know that I wasn’t expect to post anything by any of our other writers today… and then Andy Synn stepped up with this installment of favorite things that come in fives.)

Here he comes to save the day…

Ahem. Anyway, after Our Great And Most Glorious Leader’s post earlier today about having nothing to hand for the site for once, I took it upon myself to quickly bash something together in order to help uphold our nigh-unimpeachable record of journalistic quality and integrity.

Or, something like that.

Either way, it’s a good enough excuse to jam out some fat and filthy blackened riffs whilst picking and choosing five of my favourite songs by everyone’s favourite cloven-hoofed courtesans of Satan.

Deep breath…

Altogether now…

GOATWHORE!!! Continue reading »

INFERNO FESTIVAL 2015: DAY TWO

 Concert Reviews  5 Responses »
Apr 092015
 

 

(Andy Synn reports on the second day of Oslo’s Inferno Festival 2015 and provides photos.  For Andy’s report on the pre-fest show last Wednesday, go here, and his report on Day One is at this location.)

If there’s a better way to kick off another day at one of the world’s best metal festivals than by seeing Goatwhore, I’d like to hear it. Big riffs, big spikes, big attitude, the band positively ooze confidence and bleed metal, smashing through their set with almost reckless abandon.

Bassist James Harvey had a bit of a rough night, truth be told, early songs rendering his bass-lines as little more than a barely audible rumble, while snapping a string part way through the set forced the band to play a few songs without him entirely. Still, they persevered like the stalwart soldiers of Satan that they are, and on his eventual return Harvey’s lurching low-end was much more prominent. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2014’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2014  20 Responses »
Dec 262014
 

 

We bring you Part 3 of our list of 2014′s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the introductory post via this link. For the other songs we’ve previously named to the list, go here. Today we add two more songs — and I’ve paired these two for reasons that will become obvious.

GOATWHORE

We published two reviews of Goatwhore’s new album Constricting Rage of the Merciless, Andy Synn’s three-line, 14-word haiku review and DGR’s 1337-word tome. I’ll quote excerpts from each review:

“Rabid dogs learn some new tricks”

…

“In comparison to the group’s previous albums, Constricting Rage Of The Merciless is the most pit-fueled and ballsy of the Goatwhore albums. There is some serious stomping swagger on this record, like outlier ‘Baring Teeth For Revolt’. That song has a bluesy rock and roll riff made heavy by the rest of the band and a gallop designed, it seems, for the sole purpose of making people run in a circle.” Continue reading »

 Older Entries