Goatwhore - Carving out the eyes of God

Thrash black tends to be one of the smaller genres out there. But one thing is for sure, there are a small handful of some pretty damn big bands from there. All of the ones that I’M aware of are Skeletonwitch, Melechesh, Hellhammer, and Goatwhore. I originally was introduced to Goatwhore when I saw them live in 2010 at a show headlined by DevilDriver (my first time ever hearing them as well) along with Suffocation (the only reason I was there) and Thy Will Be Done. Due to my lack of interest in Goatwhore at the time, I wasn’t really that impressed by their set. Then, sometime in the last year, Goatwhore set out on a headlining tour with Hate Eternal and Fallujah (Cerebral Bore didn’t show up, which is why they’re making up for that by being on Summer Slaughter this year). Of course, for me, I was going for Hate Eternal since they completely blew the fucking place apart the first time I saw them, as well as Fallujah. A couple of days before the show, I decided that since Goatwhore was the headliner of the show that I should at least check out ONE of their albums. Well, this was the one I got and after my second listen, I was hooked.

Probably what most everyone likes about thrash black is the catchiness it has. Hellhammer is obviously filled with it; that’s what most people know about them. Also, when you listen to Skeletonwitch and Melechesh, along with the extreme grimness of the black metal sound, you can hear the slight catchiness that comes from the old school thrash metal sound. Goatwhore is the black sheep, though. They don’t have a black metal base with some thrash weaved about there and there and sprinkled around; their sound is of that description, but reversed. That’s the typical Goatwhore sound; but this album in particular is the most unique album they’ve put out so far.

This album is Goathwore’s most unique primarily because they’ve chosen to implement more death metal than they did in previous releases like A Haunting Curse. So think of it like this: the really fucking catchy thrash death sound of DevilDriver plus black metal equals Carving out the Eyes of God. That’s what I think is the overall best description of this album. So as far as influence goes, I would probably guess that DevilDriver had a HUGE influence on the sound of this album because of the resemblance it has of them. To the elite black metal listener, this album wouldn’t be at all enjoyable because it lacks the signature grimness that we black metal fans both expect and love to hear. Also, another aspect that has been completely taken out during the writing process of this record is atmosphere. You listen to the earlier works of Darkthrone, listen to Immortal, and just about any at least half-decent black metal band and hear ATMOSPHERE. Hell, even Skeletonwitch and Melechesh managed to stick atmospheric elements into their music while still keeping the thrash black sound they were aiming for. But in this album, no way in hell will you find any sort of atmospheric or traditional black metal elements.

It’s for that very reason why I initially labeled this album as a black death record. Because the death metal and thrash metal combination completely enclose the core black metal sound, there actually isn’t much black metal left. For those of you that can sniff out even the faintest scent of black metal in any situation, you’ll be able to hear SOME black metal sound in this record; but very little. When you listen to their most recent release, Blood for the Master, you hear that most of the death metal sound from Carving out the eyes of God was removed, therefore re-exposing the pure catchy thrash black sound.

What I love most about this album is the amount of energy it contains. I’m not talking about how the shitload of bass and the sound of the guitars give it grit and energy; I’m talking about how you can literally FEEL the energy that the music itself creates. You can hear that the individual members are literally putting every last drop of energy they have during the recording process and were probably sleeping for the next two days in order to regain it back. Of course, many of you will beg to differ, but that’s certainly the feeling that the album gives ME.

The song structure is completely organized and without flaw. The way everything was composed keeps the different elements evened out and keeps the different sounds from clumping together. Doing this has kept the general sound of the album fairly consistent. But the reason why it doesn’t feel repetitive is because the mixture of the different sounds aren’t COMPLETELY blended together. Think of it as like when you mix red and yellow paint; right before it turns to pure orange, it just looks like a bunch of red and yellow swirls with a tad bit of orange here and there. You can tell that there’s a blend of different sounds, but they aren’t tightly pulled together in order to make it extremely easy for the listener to digest and enjoy. In some cases this is a bad thing, but Goatwhore defy that thought by doing just the opposite and making it a good thing.

This album is a fantastic album and I would recommend it to just about any extreme metal fan. A good cacophony of black metal, death metal, and old school thrash metal gives this album a 15/20. As well as that, it’s just a motherfucking BLAST to listen to!

Belphegor - Bondage Goat Zombie

My two favorite Belphegor albums are Bondage Goat Zombie and Blood Magick Necromance. Today, I’m just going to talk about Bondage Goat Zombie because its qualities are easier to put into words than the more complex Blood Magick Necromance. Although black death is a HUGE genre, it’s actually fairly simple. There are the bands that have more death metal than black metal (Behemoth, Goatwhore, etc.), and there’s the bands that have more black metal than death metal (Belphegor, Setherial, etc.). Although the bands that have a little more death metal seem to be better, Belphegor still sticks out to me as being an extremely important contributor to both the black metal and death metal genres.

This album in particular is Belphegor’s most unique and unusual release to date. The different kinds of experimentation with Pantera-style groove and Marduk-style brutality as well as other forms of experimentation and fusion that I will mention later have really had an impact on how I view both black metal and death metal music. Although I like to think of them as more black metal than death metal, there’s a shitload of both sides tightly packed into this record. One thing that I should mention is that when people think of black death, they think of INSANE brutality like Behemoth, Setherial, and Goatwhore (especially Behemoth and Goatwhore). The gist of Belphegor’s sound is NOT pure brutality. These guys are known for taking a more experimental and calmer style of black metal, but I’ll remind you that they’ve done plenty of extremely brutal material; but they’ve made it so that it’s not a huge ingredient of their basic sound.

Probably the place where you can hear the death metal side the easiest is in the vocals. The choice of primarily using growls instead of screams is what gives this album most of its death metal feel. But as well as in the vocals, you get a death metal feel from the rhythm guitars. This layer of sound is thinly spread across every second of the album, as well as some Nile influence in Justine: Soaked in Blood. The groove sound is mostly in my favorite song off the album, Sexdictator Lucifer. To be honest, Pantera isn’t the best example to describe the type of groove Belphegor uses in this song. The type of groove in Sexdictator Lucifer has a heavy rock sound that is really slow, thick, and sludgy. As well as that out-of-place sound and the moans of The Lord’s female servants, you get to hear more black metal-style vocals than death growls. Even though this song sounds nothing like anything else on the album, I would highly recommend that you look it up because it really is something unique.

One thing that I have a problem with all pre-2011 Belphegor albums is that the treble tends to be overwhelming. This album has the best balance between the treble, mid-range, and bass, but it still has the potential of getting irritating. There are some parts that sound like they have a metalcore influence. This isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t really fit the music; which is probably why this is the only album you hear it in. But hey, I’ll give them credit for experimenting a bit with metalcore, as well as BEING SMART and realizing that it probably wasn’t the best thing to implement into their sound.

Giving this record an 18/20, Belphegor has yet to seriously disappoint me. I would highly recommend this to fans of Setherial, Behemoth, Goatwhore, (obviously) Belphegor, and black metal fans. I would also recommend it to people who are into some of the darker death metal bands and melodic death. 

Behemoth - Demigod

I first saw Behemoth play live at the Mayhem Festival in 2009. Before then, I had never even heard of Behemoth. A couple of days after I was left speechless by the power of Behemoth’s performance and the level of violence of their moshpit, I got my hands on the first Behemoth album I could find, and it turned out to be Demigod. This is one of the first extreme metal albums that I can remember that blew my mind the FIRST time I heard it. And not only that, my feelings for this album have grown exponentially since then.

Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few people out there in the world that consider Behemoth just to be black metal. Although black metal is very evident in Behemoth’s music, these guys are just simply WAY too fucking brutal and insane to just be black metal. The only way to make black metal THIS extreme is to throw a hell of a lot of death metal in there. The main thing that makes Demigod unique is that it doesn’t seem to mix in death metal…it sounds more like brutal death. And I’m not talking about the “slamming” brutal death stuff that’s BRUTAL, but not SUPER barbaric, I’m talking about the kind of brutality that’s created by bands like Hate Eternal, Aborted (particularly Goremageddeon), and Nile.

As difficult as it is, I’m going to put the sheer brutality and chaos aside and see what lies behind it. This album’s (and actually Behemoth’s) most recognizable trait is the seemingly forced out growls performed by Nerghal. Ever since I first got this album, Nerghal’s growls have been the thing that I’ve always recognized the most…those absolutely demonic vocals. Nerghal’s growls ARE NOT the deep, guttural kind that I have a major soft spot for. They sound very strained and forced out with a lot of voice; which could make “mid-range” a fairly (although not totally) accurate description of the pitch of his growls. Here’s why I particularly love the vocals on the Demigod record: the other guitarists does deep guttural growls and/or mid-ranged screams right along Nerghal’s unique vocals. This altogether makes one hell of a powerful vocal package.

The drumming is so breathtaking that it’s indescribable. Although he didn’t to this either of the times that I saw them, but I’ve seen live videos on YouTube of the drummer breaking out into a massive solo that left the audience paralyzed. Just the fact that he has the confidence to even DO a solo onstage makes him a fantastic drummer! But regardless, he is the spine-chilling growl of this Behemoth that has the power to consume the stars in the night sky. Ok, now let’s look at the bass. You can’t hear the clanging of the bassist picking the strings, but his bass is so deep and so loud that you can hear every note that he’s playing; which (yet again) only adds to the immense power of this Demigod. The reason why you can’t hear the higher-end of the bassist’s guitar is because the two guitars have so much power, crunch, and volume that they pretty much swallow it all up. Any other case, this would be a bad thing; but the vocals and drums have enough power to smash through the barbaric sound of the guitars in order to be heard clearly.

Speaking of guitars, one of the best guitarists of all-time is featured on the most extreme and brutal song on this album, Karl Sanders, who plays on the song Xul. Basically, if you want to hear the definition of mayhem, play this song and it will jump out of your speakers and relentlessly take you by the throat. Honestly, even though there is a large amount of black metal that has been incorporated in this album, the term “melodic” fails to describe any part of this album; it just simply doesn’t exist within this Demigod. Although some of the songs are much more brutal than others, the “less brutal” songs still manage to surpass the brutality of Suffocation, Cattle Decapitation, and Skinless; as well as MATCHING the brutality level of Hate Eternal, Devourment, Nile, and Fleshgod Apocalypse.

Overall, this album couldn’t possibly be any better. Behemoth needed to spend some time in the realms of extreme brutality to give a new twist to their sound that was starting to become monotonous. I would give this album a perfect score and would consider it an absolute essential for ANY metalhead’s music collection. There’s only one other Behemoth album that I’ve given a perfect score to, and that’s Pandemonic Incantations. After this literally grabbed the attention of the mainstream rock and metal media, Behemoth then released their most famous and bestselling album, The Apostasy. My favorite song off of this album is the HEAVY headbanging track which is the last song off the album as well as Before the Aeons Came and the title track, Demigod.