Ever sit back, crack open a cold one, and wonder "gee golly, what would it sound like if some sludge metal band decided to go black metal?". Yeah, me neither - not that it doesn't sound pretty cool, but because the idea of mixing a bunch of stoned southerners with a bunch of fire-breathing norwegian forest-dwellers just didn't seem very plausible. Members of the band include members of Soilent Green, Acid Bath & Crowbar such as Ben Falgoust, man these guys get around almost as much as Hellhammer... anyway, yeah, Goatwhore, for those of you who didn't see them with say... Nile, Kreator, Vader & Amon Amarth, play a very groovy, rhythmic Black/Death/Sludge kind of deal, dirty, heavy, balls out, and just a bit freakin repetitive. For playing a style you don't really see popping up everywhere, Goatwhore sure don't do anything that new, some of the groove riffs in this are deader than that ol' bloodhound laying on the dock by the bayou, mosquitos biting at him, but he don't care none, he ain't worried bout a damn thing. Unfortunately, the same thing goes for most of these sludge bands like CoC or Crowbar, the mentality is like "why even bother, when you know something that gets the job done- even if its been done to death?" ... oh right, to make me buy your record and not slam into it in a review like a semi. And theres all kinds of blast beats and shrieked vocals and death-growls and stuff of that nature, but the rhythm and riffs dominate. Ben, no more clean vocals, please. Yeah, you read right, really really bad, monotone vocals come from the way of falgoust, you think they're bad on disc, wait till you hear them live, where it just sounds like distorted emo whining... ugh, for twelve tracks too... ugh. The production is dirty, gritty, sort of in a good way, but not completely, it takes away from the instruments enough to be noticed, and it sounds very flat, it's not an exciting sound, I really can't headbang to it all that much. Now, I never bothered to hear Goatwhore's first album, "The Eclipse of Ages into Black", reasoning was at the time: fuck that, my Kreator and Tankard collections are more important. So on that note, I can't really give a comparison between the albums, but I'd be utterly shocked if that album wasn't pretty damned similar, hopefully minus the clean vocals, Ben is obviously not Charlie Rytkonen of Lefay. Overall, Funeral Dirge for the Rotting Sun is a pretty mediocre product, I would much rather be listening to the awesomeness that is Soilent Green. This just seems tired and dull... mostly, since there are some nifty Black Metal moments and some swampy groove and heavy as fuck riffs, and some annoying clean vocals. Buy if you are very interested by the style at the very least, or if you have to have every album that drops out of the pussing womb that is the New Orleans Sludge metal scene.