CONSTRICTING RAGE OF THE MERCILESS
[ALBUM REVIEW]
“Constricting Rage Of The Merciless” was released on July 8th, 2014. This was Goatwhore’s sixth album, and fourth to be produced by Erik Rutan. This would also be the last album to be produced by Rutan. Various interviews and even the wikipedia page note that the band recorded the audio on 2 inch tape. Personally, I don’t hear a difference between this and the other recordings that weren’t on tape. I think that comes down to the end production though.
Constricting starts off with “Poisonous Existence In Reawakening”, a song that, truly, sounds poisonous and venomous with Sam’s guitar riffage. I think about a pile of snakes ready to sink their teeth in you.
I feel like this album put less attention on James Harvey, from the production perspective. He seems to be put in the background, the bass being the least audible out of the other members. I have no idea why the album was produced this way.
Though I enjoy “Poisonous Existence”, I don’t really understand why the album starts with this song. In my person opinion, “Baring Teeth For Revolt” would have been a much better song to start off with, because it is high energy, and instantly draws the listener in.
I’m the type of person that views an album as an experience. For me, the final three albums Goatwhore had produced with Erik Rutan, it was more like a collection of songs. In juxtaposition with the first 2 albums, those are set up like an experience, each song perfectly placed one after the other. In the case of “Constricting”, I feel like this album is more a collection of songs, than the “Goatwhore Experience”.
I’m the type of person that listens to music with just about everything I do. This album is best listened to while driving or doing something relatively fast. Maybe an intense cardio workout or lifting weights. I remember going to a Cannibal Corpse concert in 2015, where I met a couple of body builders that listened to this type of Metal, and would lift to them. Obviously it worked, they were pretty buff.
“Nocturnal Conjuration of The Accursed” Is a punky kind of song. Pretty good, but it doesn’t stand out that much to me. “Schadenfreude” is similar, with this sear-faring sound, if that makes sense. It really reminds me of what songs would play at the bars and venues I’d see shows at in 2015 and 2016. It doesn’t stick out as a mega jam for me, though.
“Externalize This Hidden Savagery” is the final track on the album, and a strange way to end the album, in my opinion. It doesn’t feel like an “end” song, it seems out of place. To end the album with this song seems so sudden, and I usually end up thinking, “Wait, that’s it? The album’s over?”.
The most popular songs on this album are surely, “Baring Teeth For Revolt”, and “FBS”. Rightfully so, because these are great songs to listen to on the studio version and live. These songs are crowd hits, when I’ve seen them play. These are songs that you can shake you ass to! All I can say, is that Sam really knew what he was doing when he made those ones.
What’s interesting, is that you see Ben’s lyrics shift a little bit more to a song type cadence, following Sam’s guitar playing. Lyrically, Benjamin’s themes are essentially the same as always. Looking through, there are multiple mentions about serpents, which is fitting of the album art. Once again, we see Jordan Barlow’s work, in what seems to be an interesting interpretation of passage at the end of the bible, with the woman of wisdom, and the snakes with their diadems. I think it is a reference to Revelations 12.
“Baring Teeth For Revolt” has this fun, punky, Rock and Roll sense to it, which I love. It’s like a call back to “Alchemy of The Black Sun Cult” from “A Haunting Curse”. I know that I’ve said it before, but Sam can really make music to shake your ass too. I think a lot of that comes from his very Punk influences like, The Plasmatics.
My favorite song off the album is “Reanimated Sacrifice”, surprisingly. I’m surprised that I keep going back to that one, but it’s so high energy and fun, that I play it over and over again.
In general, this album is high energy. I’m sure that there’s a lot of cocaine and partying that went into this. What’s interesting to me, is that this album is looked at as one of their best examples of talent, or what someone ”should” listen to if they were to get into Goatwhore. I don’t really agree with that though. “Constricting Rage of The Merciless” isn’t a bad album, but, it does not show everything that these musicians are capable of. There are elements of their sound on other albums that are more consistent with how they play live versus this one. “A Haunting Curse” is a great representation of their high energy live. “The Eclipse of Ages Into Black” is perfect example of their Black Metal themes and esoteric interests. Naturally, Sammy leans towards the Black Metal sound, and his guitars are much heavier live than what you hear on “Constricting”. “Angels Hung From The Arches of Heaven”, their latest as of 2025, is the best representation of Benjamin’s vocals.
I’m not here to shit on anyone, or make people look bad. This is just my opinion. And, in my opinion, I think that a lot of people just instantly wanted to approve anything ever produced by Erik Rutan. I say this as someone who went to shows during the 2014-2017 era, where anecdotally, I would hear people just saying that any album was good because it was produced by Erik Rutan! That’s ridiculous! It always came off as a blind admiration, instead of actually taking the time to process, and analyze his work. To me, the best way to gauge someone’s work as a producer, is to compare his work of a band, with another producer’s work of the same band. In the case of Goatwhore, I really believe that they were constricted, no pun intended, by Erik Rutan. Those last three albums they produced with him feel like boxed in versions of themselves, to fit Erik Rutan’s idea of Goatwhore, as opposed to who Goatwhore were to themselves. I don’t hate Rutan. I just don’t like him as a producer.
Do I prefer this over “Carving”? Sure. But I prefer other albums than this one too. It’s not bad, it’s fun. It’s punky, but there is an element of magick lost here, that was found on “A Haunting Curse”. I still don’t understand what changed so drastically from that album produced by Erik Rutan, versus the next three. In my opinion, “Constricting” is the third best album that they made with Rutan. My favorite Rutan albums would be:
-A Haunting Curse
-Blood For The Master
-Constricting Rage For The Merciless
-and Carving Out The Eyes of God.
While I’m very glad that they stopped recording with him, there are still really great songs that came out of this era. “Silence Marked By The Breaking of Bone”, “An End To Nothing”, “Death To The Architects of Heaven”, “Reanimated Sacrifice”, and “I Avenge Myself” are some of my favorite Goatwhore songs of all time. These all came out of the Rutan era. But when you listen to Goatwhore as a whole, their entire discography, there are elements from the Rutan era that are missing from their previous albums, or minimized. There are elements of Sam’s style that are completely gone, which you would have heard on other albums he’s played. I just think that it’s a conglomerate of strange decisions overall.
If the album could be rearranged, I’d place “Baring Teeth For Revolt” as the first song on the album, “Reanimated Sacrifice” second, “Poisonous Existence” third, and “Unraveling Paradise” fourth. I feel like that order would really change the way this album comes off, and in a way, makes it more high energy.
Goatwhore is a lot like a ship. Benjamin is the captain of that ship in many ways, the guiding force; the one who maps out the route they’ll take, and the one that’ll ensure their destination is met. Sam is the motor, the engine. He is the heart of it; working hard, and giving his all. Without these two, Goatwhore would not be. And it seems, that after this album, their boat changed course.
-Mariah
