The Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009 countdown continues! Each day in December we will deliver one of the essential records of the year - as voted by the scribes here at BraveWords.com.

Double-bass drum roll please ....

#20 - GOATWHORE - Carving Out The Eyes Of God (Metal Blade)

An excerpt from a BraveWords.com feature written by scribe Aaron Small reads as follows:

Louisiana’s Goatwhore are Carving Out The Eyes Of God. That is the title of their new album – the second for Metal Blade and fourth in total. Given the sadistic nature, it’s somewhat surprising to hear vocalist Ben Falgoust say, “It really wasn’t extremely stressful. I think the reason is, we stepped back a little bit and felt it out more. Sometimes you write and you kind of force things – with A Haunting Curse, we wrote for speed. There was a lot of grinding speed parts in it. For the new record, we decided to sit back and let it be black and roll (black metal mixed with rock ‘n’ roll).”

The three-year gap between albums has resulted in a definite departure from the “black metal” sound. Guitarist Sammy Duet has a crisper guitar tone and the thrash influences are more prevalent. “Definitely,” agrees Ben. “We don’t want to carbon copy anything, but we do want to keep what Goatwhore is. It can shift a little bit, but not a huge jump. The whole black metal label stuck to us and the modern regimen of black metal looked at us like, black metal is keyboards and face paint. But we embrace the traditional black metal like CELTIC FROST, VENOM and BATHORY. We even incorporate angles of bands like MOTÖRHEAD, DISCHARGE and DOOM, even early JUDAS PRIEST. We are still sort of a black metal band, just not in the light of what everybody sees it as today. Like Sammy said when we were working on it, ‘we need to be light on the black, heavy on the metal.’ Now instead of it being something metal, it’s metal. That’s what it’s about. A full metal band.”

Read the entire feature at this location.

BraveWords.com - Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009

#30 - DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT - Addicted (InsideOut)

#29 - GOD DETHRONED - Passiondale (Metal Blade)

#28 - KISS - Sonic Boom (Kiss Records/ Walmart)

#27 - GORGOROTH - Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt (Regain)

#26 - CHEAP TRICK - The Latest (Cheap Trick)

#25 - EX DEO - Romulus (Nuclear Blast)

#24 - SWALLOW THE SUN – New Moon (Spinefarm)

#23 - KATATONIA - Night Is The New Day (Peaceville)

#22 - KREATOR - Hordes of Chaos (Steamhammer)

#21 - ASPHYX - Death... The Brutal Way (Century Media)

#20 - GOATWHORE - Carving Out The Eyes Of God (Metal Blade)