Review Summary: Black'n roll for the people.
There isn’t much to say about Goatwhore that the name doesn’t say for itself. It’s a name that conjures up corpse paint, pigs blood, and men setting chvrches alight no doubt, but it’s equally laughable and corny as well. To an extent, that is what Vengeful Ascension is like. It covers the whole “who needs god when you have Satan” spheal that 95 percent of black metal bands tend to cover, and so it’s rather difficult to take seriously. Bands like Behemoth and Inquisition delve deep into the perplexing web of religion and beliefs, and while anti-Christianity remains a strong theme, it never consumes the context of the music with such. To put things lightly, Goatwhore does not give a *** about any of this. It is not deep, mind boggling music, but rather a solid slab of (slightly) cheesy black'n roll.
Vengeful Ascension revolves mostly around riffs. They may not be the face melting riffs that the most savage of black metal bands have put forth, but it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the band knows how to put out a banger, or two, or seven. The riffs are nice and crunchy with a death metal grit to them, which can also be said about the half-gargled, half-rasped vocals of Louis Falgoust. Goatwhore has always been a black metal band tinged with death metal and the harsher side of rock and roll, and this record sees them continuing that trend.
In the end, Vengeful Ascension delivers. It’s fast, it riffs, there’s snarled vocals and even some thrash-inspired drumming is tossed into the mix. It’s like a cauldron of various headbanging genres all stewed together, being more meat and potatoes than anything. Through powerhouse riffs and a shallow sense of looming evil, Goatwhore is doing their name justice once again. The rather unfortunate thing about this would be the lack of intrinsic value that such a record contains, but to hell with it. They don't care and neither should you, because this album smears the concept of intellect and is completely unabashed in what it is-fun, riffing black metal.
