Not enough can be said about the miraculous change Goatwhore made on 2009’s Carving Out the Eyes of God. A relatively small tweak — the inclusion of the occasional hummable thrash riff — suddenly opened the band up: instead of a cold, perfect-to-a-fault killing machine, they became a well-functioning doomsday device. From there, they just spat out a series of surprisingly well-crafted songs. Not much has changed on their latest, Blood for the Master, but not much needed to: Goatwhore’s latter-day appeal rests in perfecting a model then wringing as much as they can out of it. After seeing dozens of once-mighty bands stumble over tone-deaf prog or ill-used pop songwriting, staying the course could be the best decision they’ve made. If it ain’t broke, just keep reappropriating Exhorder riffs to maximum effect.

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If you still have any doubts that being in a band is for losers, watch Why You Do This, the documentary by Car Bomb’s Michael Dafferner. It is a cold, hard bitch slap of reality. Including interviews with Richard Christy, Randy Blythe, Joe Duplantier, Ben Falgoust, and a bunch of other cool dudes, Why You Do This premiered last year at the Queens World Film Festival, and is now streaming online in full. Check it out:

If you enjoyed that, you can order a DVD right here.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Hey everyone. Hope you had a stellar break sharing Trans Siberian Orchestra dubstep mixes/thoughtless $25 Amazon gift cards with your loved ones. If the cover of the new Decibel is any indication—Ben Falgoust rocking a gotta-shit scowl while the other three dudes in Goatwhore do their best Mona Lisa impressions—2012’s gonna be another utterly fucked-up yet strangely satisfying year.

There’s a je ne sais quoi to NOLA metal bands, something iconic about the way they present themselves that’s tough to articulate, yet immediately identifiable. Everyone wears extra black, but they do it right. Like fellow N’awlins linchpins Crowbar, Eyehategod and Down, our February cover stars are among the hardest-working, no-bullshit, most authentic extreme bands around, qualities evident in their radical fifth LP, Blood for the Master. I just hope we remember the Goat when it’s Top 40 time at the end of the year—or, since we’ll all be obliterated, that Woody Harrelson and John Cusack remember.

The February dB also features our always, uh, completely accurate Top 25 Most Anticipated Albums of the Year preview, plus features on Black Tusk, Evoken, Will Haven and King Diamond, and Autopsy’s killer inaugural flexi. It’s up to you to see who else is representing on the gauntlet tip.

-AB

You can order the February 2012 issue of Decibel here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one an issue?

Did you know that Car Bomb vocalist Michael Dafferner’s day job is working as a satellite engineer? No, no I did not. Well, did you know that he also directed a documentary, [why_you_do_this], about how difficult and shitty it is to be a touring metal musician? No, no I did not know that, either. Yeah, well, neither did I, but apparently both facts are true.

[why_you_do_this] (it’s a statement, not a question asked by an immigrant) is going to make its premiere next week at the Queens World Film Festival (as in a world film festival which takes place in Queens, not a film festival which takes place on a world full of royal women), and even though I didn’t know about it until like ten seconds ago, it look pretty interesting — Dafferner interviewed all kinds of cool people, like Richard Christy, Randy Blythe, Joe Duplantier, and Ben Falgoust, all about the very simple question posed by the title. Or, perhaps a little less succinctly, this move could be called Holy Shit There is No Money to be Made in Metal and Touring Fucking Sucks, Why the Fucking Fuck Do You Keep Subjecting Yourself to this Crap? Which is a question every aspiring metal musician should ask him or herself, since the chances of making a living at playing music are only slightly better than the chances that you’ll be struck by lightning while receiving a wristie from Marilyn Monroe.

ANYWAY, the movie premieres at the aforementioned film festival on Friday, March 4, at 7:00pm EST at The Renaissance Auditorium (81^st Street & 37^th Ave) in Jackson Heights, NY. You can get more details, as well as tickets, here; you can also watch the trailer here and a clip here (they’re not embeddable… I guess they’re trying to keep the film a secret). I don’t think I can make it ’cause I’ll be on an airplane just hours prior, but if anyone goes, please let me know how it is. Hopefully this thing will get a DVD release or something soon so the rest of us can check it out.

Also, the press release says that Car Bomb are working on new music. That’s what they told me in 2008, too, but maybe we’ll actually get a new album before I turn eighty.

-AR

I’m sick. Not in a scary way; more in a “Went to the doctor yesterday and got on antibiotics and didn’t do any posting or checking of e-mail” kinda way. Consequently, the limited amount of posting I’m going to do today will probably be even more ineloquent and vitriolic than usual. (I’ve already responded to several e-mails this morning with the rudest possible reply I could concoct.) My apologies in advance.

Some e-mails that won’t be getting any misplaced rage caused by my current condition: the approximately 18,000 messages alerting us to the fact that Nergal has, at last, found an appropriate bone marrow donor. This is great news for a guy who really is sick in a scary way, and I couldn’t be happier. Here’s an official statement from the man himself:

Click to read more…

I’d never heard of Suicide War before this morning, when MS tipster supreme Saul Hudson alerted me to a posting on their MySpace page announcing that Kirk Windstein has joined the band:

“Yes!! It is true…. Kirk will be doing vocal duties along side Ben in SUICIDE WAR. He will also be filling the bass duties, if and when SUICIDE WAR plans to do some shows. I know some people are expecting his signature Crowbar style vocals, but he has approached this project from a completely different angle.”

Kirk Windstein’s involvement with any project is a big deal – but in case you’re wondering, the “Ben” they’re referring to in the above statement is Ben Falgoust. As in, “The dude from Goatwhore and Soilent Green.” As in, “AWESOME!” Black Label Society drummer Craig Nunenmacher (who also used to play with Windstein’s Crowbar) is also in the band, which I find a little less exciting, but whatever. The group also sports two members of Valume Nob (that’s a not a typo, by the way), an outfit I’m not really familiar with.

But who cares? Any band that has Falgoust and Windstein is, at the very least, going to be worth paying attention to. More news as we get it. In the meantime, you can check out some instrumental demos here.

-AR

MS reader Christopher Jacques once emailed us to share a revelation he had while at the front row of a Goatwhore show: Ben Falgoust’s got a beautiful set of chompers. “I am not even kidding – he must be in the no cavity club for life.  Perfectly straight.  Brilliantly white.” And while the photographic evidence Jacques submitted didn’t do much to support the “perfectly straight” claim, it’s certainly true that Falgoust could be a poster boy for Crest White Strips. More than one metal lady has confessed to me their crush on Mr. Falgoust, and as a straight man confident in his sexuality I gotta say… dude’s got it goin’ on! If I were a chick or gay I’d definitely bang him.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the ripping live Goatwhore footage posted by HardTimes.ca, an excellent metal website easily worth its weight in fine, British Columbia green. You can’t really see Ben’s pearly whites but since you’re reading this website you’re a dude and you don’t really care about that anyway. What you do care about is the kicking of asses, which you’ll get in spades. The footage was shot in Montreal on their current tour with Devildriver.

-VN

“Apocalyptic Havoc” is one hell of a heroic entrance for Goatwhore on Carving Out the Eyes of God. It sounds like a pack of angry attack dogs (Dobermans or maybe Rotweilers) breaking their ropes and charging full speed into a crowded nursery. Not a lot of bands can build up your adrenaline from 0 that fast and after a couple listens you’ll be screaming “Alriiiigggghtttt!!” in unison with Mr. Falgoust. Forty minutes later, as you catch your breath again, you’ll probably be thinking the same thing as the rest of us: This is the catchiest album Goatwhore have ever released.

Click to read more…

For those of you not from the U.S. and somehow completely unaware of this, the Fourth of July is a pretty big deal here in America. On that day, we celebrate winning our freedom by kicking the British’s ass. Of course, they later gave us Hugh Grant, so I guess they had their revenge in the end.

So there won’t be any posts tomorrow; on Monday, we’ll unveil the last albums on the list. In the meantime, here’s some things that happened this week in the world of MetalSucks:

• We continued to countdown the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. You continued to engage in, um, intelligent debate. Yeah, let’s call it intelligent debate.
• We spoke with Goatwhore’s Ben Falgoust and Black Math Horseman’s Sera Timms.
• We checked out new releases from Killswitch Engage and Havok.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi took a break from worrying about dying in fiery plane or car crash to worry about getting shot.
• We debated the merits of the new Alice in Chains song.
• We laughed at high school year book photos of past and present members of Metallica.

I plan to not be sober for the next 72 hours. See ya Monday!

-AR

I couldn’t have put it better myself. I’ve been head-over-heels for Goatwhore ever since I first saw them on the stage. Dimmu Borgir might look a bit silly in their assorted armor and spikes, but these Louisiana boys strutted straight out in the lights decked out for battle and with such confidence it was frightening. I’ve rarely seen a band before or since so sure of themselves in their own delivery, and it’s no doubt a direct result of their relentless touring which is due to pick up again next week and end… oh, probably never. I’ve been so excited about their newest release, Carving Out the Eyes of God, that I was willing to brave a phone interview with imposing vocalist Ben Falgoust II (also of legendary forward-thinking Southgrinders Soilent Green) at the shockingly early time of 8:30 a.m. My groggy head was soothed, however, by the talkative monsieur’s charming Louisiana accent as we discussed strippers, New Orleans and SATAN!!! Click to read more…

There is no news this year I have been as happy to report as this.

All of the bands on this summer’s Conquer & Curse tour – Goatwhore, Abysmal Dawn, Daath, Abigail Williams and SWWAATS (I’m way too lazy to type out their full name, even if I could have totally typed out their full name in the time it took me to write about how I’m too lazy to type out their full name) – are having a pizza party at Criminal Records in Atlanta this Wednesday, June 24, at 6 p.m.

And Goatwhore’s Ben Falgoust is the DJ.

Click to read more…

So while it was rumored for awhile that this year’s edition of Ozzfest would be a two day event – but it has now been announced that it’ll be just one single day, on Saturday, August 9, at at Pizza Hut Park* in Dallas, Texas. The line-up will be as follows:

Main Stage
OZZY OSBOURNE
METALLICA
SERJ TANKIAN
HELLYEAH
JONATHAN DAVIS
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY
SHADOWS FALL
APOCALYPTICA
IN THIS MOMENT
All-Star Tribute To “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott

Second Stage
SEVENDUST
DEVILDRIVER
KINGDOM OF SORROW
SOILENT GREEN
WITCHCRAFT
GOATWHORE

Texas (Third) Stage
THE SWORD
DROWNING POOL
RIGOR MORTIS

Actually, that is, by no means, a terrible line-up; if the stages are staggered at all (and I imagine they will be), it would be plenty easy to keep oneself occupied during sets from In This Moment, Jonathan Davis, and HellNo. And I guess it’s honorable of Metallica to let Ozzy play last, even though, at this point, a) they’re much bigger than Ozzy and b) Ozzy has to be in bed by 8 pm. I mean, if I was Ozzy, and I’d spent recent Ozzfests getting blown off the stage by the likes of Maiden and Priest, I certainly wouldn’t wanna follow Metallica. But, y’know, nice of Ulrich and Hetfield to step aside for one night and let the Ozzman cometh.

Click to read more…

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“Man, do I feel sorry for you,” Brian Patton tells me as he chain smokes his way through what must be at least his seventh cigarette in the last hour. “You gotta transcribe this with my accent!” He’s referring to the Nawlins drawl which gives Patton and his Soilent Green bandmates – vocalist Ben Falgoust (also of Goatwhore), drummer Tommy Buckley (also of Crowbar), and bassist Scott Crochet (also of Hostile Apostle) – the easygoing air of southern gentlemen. It’s a little off putting, actually, considering that a) these dudes make some fucking furious death/grind/sludge and b) have endured about as much hardship as a band possibly could, including line-up changes, label changes, murder/suicides, and, of course, the wretched effects of Hurrican Katrina on their native turf.

But the band seems unphased, and with good reason: they have an awesome new album, Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction, coming out on their new label, Metal Blade, on April 15; and just twenty four hours prior, they completed shooting performance footage for the video of their new single, “Antioxidant,” with director David Brodsky (it’s that clip above, and you should definitely watch it at least twice – it’s arguably Brodsky’s best work to date).

I was lucky enough to fulfill every fan’s wet dream of having dinner with the band the night after the shoot; afterwards, Patton let me grab a few minutes to pick his brain about the new album, producer Erik Rutan, the state of metal today, the influence of non-metal music on Soilent Green’s work, and more. Read the full transcript after the jump.

Click to read more…