Review by Rexorcist for Archgoat - Whore of Bethlehem (2006)

Alright, so after having been disappointed with Blasphemy's work, I was really hoping my ventures into Archgoat wouldn't become a disaster. Cabinet and Caucasian Concentration Camp are my go-to acts for comparing the good and the bad, as each bands meets their extreme very well.  And Archgoat, having their fine share of albums needed for any BBM collection (if there is such a thing), were practically a must do for me.  So, I started with one extended play which I won't be reviewing here, just to get a taste for their sound first, and then decided to move through their debut upwards.

After than dark ambient intro, it was pretty obvious that the studio-quality production already gave it a serious advantage over Blasphemy's albums.  Thanks to the perfect production, the heaviness is more enjoyable than Blasphemy.  All that was left was to see how the songwriting went.  And lemme tell you, among the mindless thrashing, there were some MAJOR breaths of fresh air in the "give you a break and put something new on the table" department.  Early on, Lord of the Void makes a point of slower doomy moments, and eventually just bursting into seriously unpredictable territory without breaking format, mood or genre.  But I decided that unless the band mixes it up a little more, I'm not going to give it the best rating.  And Dawn of the Light largely did that, although I appreciate the slow Sabbath midsection.  But no matter which song came next, it ended up sounding like a shameless rehash of the last song, so I don't really get the feeling that these guys are bringing war metal to its fullest potential and are just standard.

Archgoat is way better than Blasphemy, that much is obvious.  But this is the kind of album that satisfies raw headbangers and thrashers who need a metallic atmosphere, and are nothing short of the very norm that they set up for black metal musicians everywhere.  Archgoat's proven they can perform a black metal song with the fury necessary, so let's see them try to do something else.