Metal Blade
All Access Rating: A-
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| Goatwhore - Constricting Rage of the Merciless 2014 |
And that's probably the least hostile insurrectionist utterance in what is, for them, an angry and uncompromising missive wrapped in irresistibly sultry Southern boogie grooves as tight and action-packed as the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Constricting Rage of the Merciless, Goatwhore's newest Metal Blade incursion of blackened death metal, is a study in untamed ferocity and controlled aggression, with a track like "Reanimated Sacrifice" getting its complex hooks into its victims and gutting them like so many fish.
The blistering "FBS" has them, too, although Goatwhore saves that carnage for the end. Initially, it's an all-out stampede of blazing riffs and fast beats racing for their very lives. Death, of course, hangs around Constricting Rage of the Merciless, enjoying the dangerous philosophical ruminations and dense, evocative language of horror and abomination, while nodding his head to the galloping "Nocturnal Conjuration of Accursed" and getting his fill of the broken, stained-glass guitar intro to "Cold Earth Consumed in Dying Flesh" and then witnessing its slow churning sludge suddenly break out into a high-velocity drag race of the damned.
An explosive album, with daring, twists and turns that, more often than not, head straight down corridors of hellish atmospheres, Constricting Rage of the Merciless is uncompromising, heavy and focused on nothing but spewing forth its venom. The speeding, crunching "Heaven's Crumbling Walls of Pity" changes tactics in the middle of a war on mediocre metal and assumes a decidedly evil tone. An unending stream of ruthlessly efficient riffing, so enormous and brutal, comes pouring out of Goatwhore like rivers of blood on an album that runs on pure adrenaline, Goatwhore somehow avoiding being pigeonholed as black metal or death metal and just delivering constant slam-bang motion. Guitarist Sammy Duet, formerly of Crowbar and Acid Bath, captains a crew that plays with frightening intensity and skilled precision, and they are out to pillage and plunder without compassion. In other words, they are merciless.
– Peter Lindblad
