I can just imagine the scene down at the Goath hell-bunker when finished copies of the last album arrived – debut Luciferian Goath Ritual. Goathammer: ‘Muerte, can I speak to you for a minute. We just got the album back from the printers over in Sodom.’ Muerte: ‘Oh that’s great, Goathammer, now can I just get back to sacrificing this chicken? Then I’ve got to get the pizzas in the oven because Serrator is back soon from Vulcan’s iron foundry making chains for the eternally damned and he always gets irritable when there’s no dinner on the table.’ Goathammer: ‘Yes, yes, of course, but have you seen the cover?’ Muerte: ‘No – but I expect it’s a picture of us three in Goath surrounded by tormented souls and being lauded by a carpet of snakes, just like we asked?’ Goathammer: ‘Yes, apart from they’ve used a picture of a goat instead of Goath.’ Muerte: ‘A goat?? A fu*king goat? Give me that… actually it looks pretty cool.’ Goathammer: ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’ And the rest is history…
… there’s no question about it, Goath (a place mentioned briefly in the bible as located just beyond Jerusalem) are one of those bands you don’t know quite whether to take seriously when you first encounter them – and not just because the first full length album had a picture of a goat on it, standing proud as if bathed with the spirit of Lucifer himself and flanked by the glowing fires of hell. It’s when you put it on that you know these guys are not mucking around and that the spirit of evil, soot-black death metal is strong in them. The band definitely has some form: Deathronation, featuring Goathammer (Goath vocals and guitars) and Muerte (bass and vocals), previously released an album with Ván Records which was more down-the-line death metal, albeit with an unmistakably blackened edge. While Muerte and Serrator have been involved with Total Hate – unmistakably a pure-bred black metal band of the kind that might well not pass the PC test. I’m not sure to what extent Deathronation has morphed into Goath but, if it has, it’s been beaten, mangled, twisted and warped along the way and come back bleeding, screaming and fighting.
Goath’s goaty debut was a single minded blast of fury with some eerie interludes and undeniably elegant touches that made you realise this is more than just a band of maniacs venting their base emotions into heavy metal form. If so, then Goath II sees that form chiselled into an angry, red, demonic form. There’s an unmistakable early 1990s sound in Goath (Deicide springs to mind) from mid-paced headbanging to a breakneck speed freakery and all the while keeping things as tight as Satan’s wallet during the Christmas sales. But for all their worship of the early death metal sound, Goath toy with the formula to keep things interesting as well – varied vocals ranging from the guttural growls of Goathammer to the more rasped delivery of Muerte that spar well with each other; while the band has clearly benefitted from the past couple of years fermenting with the song writing this time round adding new dimensions to a sound that was originally far more like a torrent of berserk emotion than a disciplined attack (the last album was recorded in 30 hours to capture a live sound).
While early tracks deliver – Born Of Fornication drags you into a blackened vortex while the title track unleashes the band’s full rhythmic, percussive force – Opposition gets tighter as it progresses. Enraged And Possessed is just about where Goath traps you in its steel clawed grasp followed by the final two tracks which add new dimensions to the sound while retaining all of the band’s claustrophobic pressure they’ve built up over the first three quarters of the release. Opposition is never dull although it sometimes feels like it could maybe pause to catch its breath – some of the tracks in the middle of the release risk running out of breath at times amid the constant bombardment. But, while it’s hard not to feel that this one might not be the album to break Goath out of the confines of the hardcore underground where it will comfortably sit besides war metal bands and the rest of the blackened death metal hordes, the band have marked themselves out as capable contenders worthy of attention.
(7.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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