LIVE REVIEW: GOATWHORE, THE BERZERKER, WARBRINGER, VEX @ RED 7 ATX

All photos by Nick Darrah

by The WZA'd (ATX)

This year’s metal releases have been peppered with thoughtful, spacey – and lengthy – high-concept records with crossover accessibility ranging from Crack the Skye to Monoliths and Dimensions. Generally, I’ve been happy about them, but while listening to the new Baroness I realized I wasn’t going through my usual motions: headbanging, randomly switching between air guitar and drums, beating up hipsters, fighting dragons, etc. I had thoughts like, “is this metal? What is metal? How many trips into prog-laden alternate dimensions of musical space-time can I take before I finally forget how to headbang?”

I decided I needed a way out. I’m all for trippy prog stuff, but I needed to touch base with what is metal and true. I needed a crowd of sweaty drunk heshers wearing black t-shirts. I needed a pit. I needed fast, loud music about death and destruction.

I needed to see Goatwhore at Red 7.

That night, my photographer friend Nick and I made the journey downtown. When we got there, we went inside Red 7 and I immediately started looking for Ben Falgoust II, Goatwhore’s frontman. I had been told to look for him at the merch table, so I walked over to it and was amazed: Goatwhore’s display of merch was the biggest I’ve ever seen from a touring band. Thongs, patches and a plethora of satanic T-shirts, among other black-colored goodies, crowded the merch corner.



“We have a lot of it at times,” Falgoust said. “Sometimes I’m like ‘maybe we should slim down a little bit,’ but sometimes ideas just keep rolling and you’re like, ‘let’s do this one!’”

Ben and I talked about a few other things, like how awesome Relapse is, the perception of black metal among kids these days, Dave Witte, living in Metairie, LA, how sweet the Municipal Waste tour is going to be, playing with Eyehategod and Pig Destroyer on a boat and the story behind their T-shirt that says “Stay Sick/Stay Fuck/Hail Satan.” We eventually parted ways, and Nick and I walked inside for the show.

Vex were the local band the promoters decided to tack onto this lineup. They played variations on death metal that ranged from melodic to old school-style death metal. However, the singer’s stationary performance sticks out in my mind as the defining aspect of their set. Nothing, ladies and gentlemen, is more brutal than standing in one place.



When the next band got onstage, we thought their Obituary and Carcass shirts were dead giveaways as to the kind of metal they were going to play. Warbringer, however, is a thrash metal band in the vein of Anthrax. The crowd ate it up, and near the end of the set the singer mentioned that they weren’t “the kind of band that isn’t cool with you guys coming on stage to headbang and stuff.” The audience took the hint and soon people were crawling onto the stage. Similarly, the band's guitarist made a few trips into the crowd to shred among us.



As Warbringer’s set ended, I started wondering about The Berzerker. I had never heard of this band before, but people all over the show were wearing the t-shirts. I looked more closely and read the fine print under the band’s name: “Extreme Industrial Grind.” Quickly, I became excited.

Their set is a blur to me now. For the entirety of it, I shut out the world and focused on the band. I love this band, I thought while my body underwent spasms contracted from trying to keep up with their cybergrind. By the time they were done, my shirt was soaked in sweat and I could barely stand.



“That band was so good,” I said.
“It looked like you were enjoying them,” Nick said.
“Yes. Yes I was.”

Finally, Goatwhore took the stage, clad in gauntlets and bullet-belts. Here was a serious band. Their performance was a display of both intense concentration and crowd-pleasing interaction. Goatwhore is a band comprised of musicians' musicians, and the dedication to their craft is intense and awe-inspiring. Each member has been part of another great band (Acid Bath, Soilent Green, Ritual Killer, Nachtmystium), but Goatwhore's unified performance was impressive. But as serious as they were, they also knew that the performance was as important as their musical ability. They engaged the audience, showing off and talking a little bit in-between songs. Ben took the time to fist-bump me not once but three times.



The audience loved it too – a happy drunken pit formed and stayed active for the set. Everybody was wet. People were covered in sweat, spit, beer and in some cases, blood. But nobody slowed down. Nobody got tired. The writhing crowd threw up their horns in salute. This was what I came for. This was what we all needed.