Goatwhore Don't Take Black Metal To Extremes

Black metal bands are some of the most technically expert and creative songwriters in all of metal, so it's too bad that many of these groups and their fans are way too serious about their beliefs. In fact, the over-the-top evil and satanic imagery is at times laughable.

So it was refreshing to see Goatwhore lead vocalist Ben Falgoust call out some of these fans and bands during a Toronto concert last April. I asked him about his stance about the attitude and seriousness that come with being considered true black metal, or as the black metal elitists call it "trve."

"It's just that sometimes I think people do it because it's this 'cult' thing," Falgoust says about black metal posing. "I guess some people think we're not really a fully black metal-based band.

"We've never claimed to be fully black metal. We were just heavily influenced by a lot of the early stuff, like Venom and Celtic Frost, and we're influenced by more of the modern bands like Darkthrone and Dimmu Borgir.

"But we don't hold this flag saying you got to be true. What is true? Who's to say what is true? It's definitely not someone at a show in the U.S. or anywhere else except Norway where the whole idea was spawned. You can even go back even further than that. If you go back to Celtic Frost, then the idea was spawned in Switzerland, or Venom, then it spawned in England. So I don't think anyone has a right to say what is true and what is not true. I just think sometimes people are too serious with the whole idea."

Although Goatwhore are probably North America's best example of black metal, they don't limit themselves to the traditional formula of some of the genre's European bands. Where more modern black metal has classical arrangements and utilizes keyboards, Goatwhore's sound leans more towards old-school black metal and American death metal, which is probably why their style has been dubbed "blackened death metal."

"I think that's pretty close," Falgoust says of the label. "If you sat down really hard and listened to all the Goatwhore stuff, it goes from anything to like grindcore to early elements of thrash metal, black metal, doom metal — we even have punk and hardcore elements.

"I'm not talking about the modern wave, but early bands like Discharge and Doom. The music has a lot of connections to other genres, but a lot of people are like, 'No, it has nothing to do with it.' But it does."

Through rigorous touring, Goatwhore have slowly but surely made a name for themselves. Despite having been on two major tours already this year supporting God Forbid in January and Norwegian black metal favourites 1349 in the spring, the band find themselves in fresh territory on The Sounds Of The Underground tour.

"We thought it would be a good tour for us to go out on to expose ourselves to a different audience instead of the usual crowd we play in front of," explains Falgoust. "It's Sounds Of The Underground, but a lot of the shows we do are more underground-based than this tour.

"There are a lot of kids that don't really know much about the underground, so this kind of tour can open things up to them. We're playing in front of a lot of fresh new faces, new people that have never seen us before, so it's definitely an opportunity to expand our crowd."

Make sure you show up early to see Goatwhore, one of the best bands on this year's Sounds Of The Underground tour, at these Canadian stops:

July 18 Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
July 27 Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall
July 28 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Conference Centre