Extreme metal veterans Goatwhore paid a visit to Nashville’s Exit/In
Tuesday to entertain the masses with their high intensity live show and
celebrate the release of their new studio album, Constricting Rage of The
Merciless. The new album from Metal Blade Records is available digitally, on
compact disc, and also on a lovely green/white split vinyl. The legendary
ferocity of Goatwhore’s live act was enough to get me excited, but it was the
beauty of the vinyl release that convinced me to meet up with front man Ben Falgoust
beforehand and ask a few vinyl-centric questions. Lucky for me, Ben is a
generous soul and gave me the opportunity.
Ben frequently traveled from New Orleans to Houston as a
young man to partake in the city’s rich metal scene, and he warmly recalled lots
of crate digging while road tripping. I was curious as to how being a vinyl fan
may have influenced the latest record.
I learned that the new album was recorded almost entirely on
analog and mastered for vinyl and that the guys were excited to get a chance to lay
down tracks in the retro style that is helping fuel a vinyl renaissance among
metal heads and music fans in general. The tone that Goatwhore employs to power
their songs has always been full and warm, and an analog release has done
nothing but further solidify those qualities.
The guys have been entertaining with their blackened brand
of metal for nearly twenty years now and whiskey and determination keep them
going strong nightly, battling it out in a genre filled with high energy bands
and ferocious, loyal fans.
The local Tennessee
whiskey must have been quite amenable, because Goatwhore took the stage and
immediately transformed the crowd into moshing maniacs dancing atop a live wire
of molten metal. Ben has no trouble working the crowd with piercing, soulful
stares while his snarling vocals pound with unyielding force, nearly commanding
the sinewy drums and artful guitar into willful submission.
It’s sort of like watching the tall man in Phantasm lead a
funeral procession of black, speeding hearses down a steep quarry road into
what is certainly an aberrant abyss. Driving, hammering, anvil-pounding,
obsidian metal long into the steamy Summer night.
Goatwhore’s vision of viscous blackness gives the mere
mortals among us a glimpse into what it's like to actually experience and
thrive within the embrace of passionate, dark, biting metal. It gives us a
chance to break the shackles of daily grind and become, if only for an hour, a
demigod of destruction and mastery. It allows us to rise above ourselves in
dauntless triumph and stand atop our feeble brethren.
If only for a night. A short, sweltering, blissful night.
- Oldfatbroke
All live photo credits Jim Ribeiro
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