Customer Reviews

Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Ahahah.. you think Cradle of Filth is black metal? Aaaaahahahahahahah

That's rich.

Anyways, yeah. Good album.

Despite the somewhat low rating for the album, I am a fan of Goatwhore. I saw them at Art of Noise Tour 2 with Amon Amarth, Vader, Kreator, and Nile, and I honestly thought that they were the best live act there. That's saying a lot. As the previous reviewer mentioned, if you ever get a chance to see this band live, do it. Their energy, charisma, and precision is unmatched.

That said, I feel this album is lacking comparing to the excellent The Eclipse of Ages Into Black. That album was one of the best and most diverse post-millenium black metal albums I have ever heard. As mentioned, this band does a good job mixing various styles such as black, death, sludge, and even some doom metal. It's not even that the songs are terrible. Sky Inferno(track 6) is actually one of the best songs they have written. But as a whole, this album fails to stack up. This lies in a few factors.

First and foremost is the riffs. While they are still good, the tone of the riffs tend to blend together from song to song. Also, there are none that jump out at you as being extremely emotional or majestic, such as the riff in track 8(Name escapes me) of their first album.

Which brings me to the second problem; the production. The drums and guitars are too tightly meshed together in the mix, and as a result, both sound a little bit hollow, and lack the crispness of the first album. This especially hurts the riffs, and is possibly one of the reasons why they lack the atmospheric tone of their previous albums. It also hurts the drumming, which is also simply less diverse than the last album.

Which brings me to the final problem: The Diversity. While it is true that Goatwhore mixes styles very well, it's almost as if they put all of their styles into a blender and left them in the blender too long. As a result, none of the unique styles stand out and it sort of comes of as being half-sludge/half-death, with a touch of black metal influence. This also hurts the song structures and tones, which lack the variety of "The Eclipse of Ages Into Black." In fact, what separated that album from all other great black metal albums is that, while it had a very depressing atmosphere, each song was extremely different in both structure and tone, as were the instruments from song to song. One song could have grind drumming with black metal riffs and vocals, one could have sludge riffs with rock drumming and black vocals, another could have death vocals, riffs, and drumming, and yet another could have doom vocals, riffs and drumming. In short, grind/death/doom/black/sludge/etc. were all prevalent throughout the album, and yet, they are all allowed to stand out within the context of a depressing and hellistic atmosphere that marked the early 90's black metal hayday. The Funeral Dirge album is lacking the most in both diversity and atmosphere.

In short, if you are a big fan of Goatwhore, or even a fan of sludgy death metal, you will likely enjoy this. However, for black metal fans or fans looking for an introduction to Goatwhore, start with their first album. Hopefully, their Metal Blade debut will accentuate the traits of their first album.

i have to admit that i like these guys,and would recommend to anyone who wants to hear something alittle different than the average black metal band,and by the way....although the cd says cdcopywrited on it doesnt mean it cannot be copied...the only way i could do it was using the windows media to (rip the tracks on media and then burn it on a blank disc,and it worked successfully,so if anyone else out there is having the same problem with that particular album to just try windows media..anyway i like these guys and i feel everyone should be open minded and give em a try..

I just saw Goatwhore last night opening up for Amon Amrth, Vader, Kreator, and Nile. I didn't know any of their stuff yet. They kicked ass! As soon as Goatwhore finished their set I went up to the merch booth and bought this cd. It's really good. I haven't heard EOAIB except for once a really long time ago, but judging by some of the reviews here on amazon, it doesn't sound too great. Therefore I think this one must be a big improvement because this one is insane. They gave me two stickers and a patch with the cd!

You know you want to listen to a band called "Goatwhore."

This album is good, no doubt, but seeing them live is a whole other experience. Goatwhore never fails to put on one of the best live shows. Many bands sound better in the studio but Goatwhore is a band you must witness live. Get their albums but be certain to SEE THEM LIVE to witness the true intensity these guys bring to their music.

My god, if you thought EOAIB was decent, wait till you hear this. The second Sacrament Of Emptiness And Dispair started playing I thought "o dear." I knew this would be darker and blacker than Serenades of Tides and EOAIB, as the sticker says on the front. This cd is definately faster and harder and BETTER than the last, and the whole cd kind of flows together like some real dark experience. And man, I saw Goatwhore the other day in San Francisco with Nile, Kreator, Vader....they just tore it up. But anyway, my favorite track of this is Blood Guilt Eucharist, but they all rule. Definitely get this cd.

Ok, just kidding!
This is the first Ghoatwhore CD I owned and I love it! This does sound evil and it's straight forward "Black & Roll!"
What I like about this is that I listened to bands like Christian Death in my younger days, and they are more "Death Rock/Gothic"
and I hear elements of that in this disc. I like this more than their follow up in 2006.
The worlds fastest song (that doesn't suck) is Chanting Bells of Funeral Anguish, which is probably my favorite track!
I would say the first 6 songs are the strongest and the rest that follow are more or less filler tracks. But they are so
strong that I give it 5 stars. It's obvious that some of you just don't get it and don't know talent when you hear it!

Let me start off by saying goatwhore has a totally original sound with their blending of black/death/doom/hardcore metal. But what really annoys me about Ben falgoust and pretty much every project he is involved with is the lyrical structure. Being that there is no good hooks and choruses, it's impossible to take anything away from this album, it leaves you w/ nothing...the lyrics kinda read like cradle of filth lyrics in that they don't repeat anything. I just wish they would take thier lyrics then cut them in half and begin repeating certain parts and making some cool chants for the fans to remember, it would also make the live shows better and get fans more involved, musically speaking i like what was put down to tape on this record, but it definitely lacks in the production department. In a word everything is...FLAT, nothing really jumps out at you, and an album like this needs to be sharp, compressed tightly, and punchy as hell IMO....please go record w/ colin richardson, matthew jakobsen, or maybe even matt bayles in the future...you guys still rock!

Compared to Eclipse of Ages Into Black and Haunting Curse, this album is by far the weakest. I don't know if they were trying to cut into the MTV scene with this one, which apparently they did, but it sure sounds that way. There are 2 tracks of nothing but pointless "evil" sounds and half the songs are really boring and pointless. I just have to skip over them. Now don't get me entirely wrong. There are some great songs on here. Vengeance Of Demonic Fury and Blood Guilt Eucharist are very catchy and the time signature changes in Chanting Bells Of Funeral Anguish make for a really cool song. It's worth buying this album, but when you rip it to mp3, just ditch half the tracks.

The CD says "copy protected" but if you use the newest version od itunes 5.0.1 it will rip it to your hard drive.