Photo Gallery: Shredders, Part 1

March 18, 2023March 10, 2023 Wayne EdwardsAndrew J. Brady Music Center, Death Metal, Exodus, Gatecreeper, Goatwhore, Heavy Metal, Higher Ground, Kreator, Live Music, Michael Schenker Group, Municipal Waste, Old National Centre, Overkill, Piere's Entertainment Center, Pure Filth Festival, The Convalescence, Thrash Metal

**Gatecreeper at the Old National Centre, Indianapolis**

**Goatwhore, Higher Ground, Burlington**

**Kreator, Andrew J. Brady Music Center, Cincinnati**

**Michael Schenker Group, Piere’s Fort Wayne, Indiana**

**Municipal Waste, Pure Filth Festival**

**Overkill, Piere’s, Fort Wayne, Indiana**

**The Convalescence, Michigan Metal Fest**

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

© Wayne Edwards

Photo Gallery: Bassists, Part 1

February 5, 2023February 3, 2023 Wayne EdwardsAndrew J. Brady Music Center, Armored Saint, Black Metal, BMI Event Center, Death Metal, Deocculted, Doom Metal, Exodus, Goatwhore, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Higher Ground, Hookers, Live Music, Mercyful Fate, Muddy Roots Festival, Newport Music Hall, Stoner, Stoner Metal, Stoner Rock, Tennessee Metal Devastation, The Red Mountain, Thrash Metal

**Mercyful Fate at Andrew J. Brady Center, Cincinnati**

**Armored Saint at BMI Event Center, Versailles, Ohio**

**Deocculted at Tennessee Metal Devastation**

**Exodus at Newport Music Center, Columbus**

**Goatwhore at Higher Ground, Burlington**

**The Red Mountain at Tennessee Metal Devastation**

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

Photo Gallery: Drummers, Part 2

January 28, 2023January 19, 2023 Wayne EdwardsAnthrax, Armored Saint, Black Metal, Black Veil Brides, Blue Ridge Rock Festival, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Dopethrone, Goatwhore, Halestorm, Heavy Metal, Heavy Montreal, Higher Ground, Incantation, Live Music, Music Festivals, Piere's Entertainment Center, Pure Filth Festival, Tennessee Metal Devastation, Thrash Metal, Tommy Stewart's Duerwulf, Voivod

**Black Veil Brides, Blue Ridge Rock Festival**

**Incantation, Piere’s, Fort Wayne, Indiana**

**Tommy Stewart’s Dyerwulf, Tennessee Metal Devastation**

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

Goatwhore, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven (Metal Blade 2022)

October 4, 2022October 2, 2022 Wayne EdwardsAngels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, Black Metal, Death Metal, Goatwhore, Heavy Metal, Metal Blade Records, New Orleans, Thrash Metal

New Orleans metal band Goatwhore reach a new plane on their eighth album, Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven.

Goatwhore came to life in New Orleans a couple of years before the turn of the last century. After a demo and a split, the first full-length album they released was the raw The Eclipse of Ages into Black (2000). A few years later came Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun (2003) and then, the first one I heard when it came out, A Haunting Curse (2006). The next couple of albums were break-outs for the band in many ways. My favorite of them all, looking back, has become Constricting Rage of the Merciless (2014), but the new album has given it a run for its money. It is the intensity combined with the relentlessness that gets to me when I listen to Goatwhore. The band is Louis B. Falgoust II (vocals), Sammy Duet (guitar, vocals), Zack Simmons (drums), and Robert “TA” Coleman (bass).

After the eerie invocation there are eleven blazing tracks on Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven, beginning with the bestial “Born Of Satan’s Flesh.” It is a rampage of savage metal. Speed and wickedness are the guiding principles, and they are executed to the extreme. The growling and howling vocals are an active threat; the guitars an attack. The lead guitar break is surprisingly lyrical, luring your attention away before a counterattack. “The Bestowal Of Abomination” follows and falls in line. Here the guitars soar at the beginning and the opening percussion is even more in your face. And, here too, the lead guitar at first gives a look that stands in contrast to what is happening around you. When it returns, however, it is a craven menace.

The title track, “Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven,” comes third. It is dark and dramatic. The opening bars set up a story from which you cannot turn away. A superior depth is plumbed here. The odyssey you are on with the album comes into sharp focus, as the does the realization of the magnitude of the band’s achievement. I am impressed with every song, and I have a special attachment to the sequence of “Voracious Blood Fixation” and “The Devil’s Warlords.” In both, and for different reasons, the guitars are especially vivid to me.

The set ends with “And I Was Delivered From The Wound Of Perdition.” This last piece has its own set-up and culminates in a voracious consumption of doom. It is my favorite track on the album for the way it brings together and connects all the thriving elements employed in Goatwhore’s music into an overwhelming compelling amalgamation. This record will live on in your mind and will haunt you for as long as time exists. Highly recommended.

Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven is out on Friday, October 7^th through Metal Blade Records in all kinds of vinyl and the usual other formats.

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

Links.

Goatwhore website, http://www.goatwhore.net/

Bandcamp, https://goatwhore.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/thegoat666

Metal Blade Records, https://www.metalblade.com/us/

Gwar, Goatwhore, Nekrogoblikon, and The Native Howl at Higher Ground, June 15th

July 4, 2022June 27, 2022 Wayne EdwardsBlack Metal, Burlington, Death Metal, Goatwhore, Gwar, Heavy Metal, Higher Ground, Nekrogoblikon, The Native Howl, Thrash Metal, Vermont

Gwar rolled the Black Death Rager World Tour over Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont.

I wrote about the first show on this tour a while back, and I also wrote a little about Goatwhore’s performance at Higher Ground in separate posts (links below). I don’t want to repeat myself too much so I won’t ramble hereabouts – check out those recap notes in the earlier posts if you are interested. This entry exists because I had a few photos to put up that weren’t in the other bits.

Have a look at the bands’ links following the photos, and see them on the road this summer and fall.

Photos by Wayne Edwards.

Links.

FFMB review of the tour performance at Piere’s, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2022/05/20/gwar-at-pieres-fort-wayne-indiana-may-19th/

FFMB review of the Goatwhore performance at Higher Ground, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2022/06/17/goatwhore-at-higher-ground-burlington-vermont-june-15th-2022/

Gwar, https://gwar.net/

Nekrogoblikon, https://nekrogoblikon.bandcamp.com/

The Native Howl, https://www.thenativehowl.com/

Goatwhore, http://www.goatwhore.net/

Higher Ground, https://highergroundmusic.com/

Goatwhore at Higher Ground, Burlington, Vermont, June 15th 2022

June 17, 2022June 16, 2022 Wayne EdwardsBlack Metal, Death Metal, Goatwhore, Heavy Metal, Higher Ground, Live Music, New Orleans, Thrash Metal

Goatwhore is on tour with Gwar right now – I caught up with them in Burlington, Vermont.

Goatwhore is a New Orleans death/black/thrash metal band that has been roaming the earth for twenty-five years. I have listened to them for much of that time, but I didn’t get a chance to see them live until Psycho Las Vegas in 2019. I was completely blown away. They played their set in the House of Blues and that place absolutely melted down. Ever since then, I have been on a quest to see them again and maybe get a couple of photos.

I saw Gwar at the very first stop on their current tour, but Goatwhore wasn’t at the show because they were playing somewhere else. Damn and blast. I tracked them to the North Country and found them at Higher Ground, one of my favorite music venues in all the world. Here are a few photos from that show. Go see them on their co-headlining tour in August with Incantation – and any other time you can.

Photos by Wayne Edwards.