Goatwhore at the Gramercy

Two days before my big move I decided to go check out the "Conquer and Curse" tour stopping off at the Gramercy. With Live Nation giving away $5 tix and my new found love of Goatwhore I couldn't refuse!

When I walk in Abysmal Dawn is playing. They had the same generic look and sound of so many old school death metal bands. We hopped into some seats in the back of the venue and watched them from afar. Snore.

I was looking forward to Daath. At first listen of their record I thought they were also a bit generic but Eric really enjoyed it. So I gave it more of a chance and got very into their playing. I always like technical music and their drummer is phenomenal and the riffs are nice and big. Sadly the drummer was sitting out the tour and was replaced by Goatwhore's drummer. He did an admirable job but it just wasn't the same as their styles are different and really showed the weaknesses in the songwriting. Daath also has mediocre stage presence so the set fell flat.

Worried that this whole night was a wash I start mingling with the contingency of local Metal bloggers who made up about 60% of the audience. But the whole night was worth it for the majesty of Goatwhore.

Now they were also marred by a last minute lineup issue. For some reason their bassist was sitting out the tour and all the bassists from the other bands learned a couple Goatwhore songs. Thankfully this did not, despite their frequent apologies, affect their stage show at all. They come off a lot less like a Celtic Frost clone live, even though the guitarist was sporting an old school Hellhammer shirt. Not that I have any problem with Celtic Frost clones, I think the world needs a lot more of them, but their stage presence and sound came off a lot closer to the New Orleans sludge of their other bands. A large chunk of the set was from their new record "Carving out the Eyes of God" which was a good thing. A killer set and I can't wait to see them again in September with Obituary, Krisiun and Berzerker.

Abigail Williams was the kind of Hot Topic sponsored Black Metal that is making the genre even more of a joke than it already is. The only consolation to me was that they don't seem to have an audience built and many people walked out on them. They do not deserve the dignity of a bad review.

All pix are of Goatwhore.........