Goatsblood "Drull" CD
[Willowtip]
Hot damn. Their last CD was good, but seemed a little generic to me. This one's definitely more diverse, keeping that same core of absolutely pummeling sludge littered with bits and pieces more akin to grind, but throwing in some fucking sick melodic sensibilities that damn near had me shitting my pants upon the first listen. The vocals tend to be nasty high screams with a shitload of grimy texture, occasional dropping some lower midrange growls/shouts as well. But god damn, the dissonant melodies in the opening title track sound like fucking Godflesh gone sludge/doom, and I'm all over that action. Every now and then they loosen the reigns on the guitars and venture into noisier territory with scraping textures and feedback (notably in "Beatrice Hog"), and they handle such moments in fine form... but the sheer density of the discordant chords is fucking incredible! And those acoustic guitars in "Coelacanth"!? Nice... very nice. The recording is really fucking good, too. I think I might like to hear a slightly altered mix, but barely. The drums sound perfect, the bass tone is fucking suffocatingly massive (in the best possible way), and the guitar tone doesn't get any better than this for their brand of music. I also love the clarity of the vocal textures. All I might change would be to drop the vocals back in with the music so that everything's fighting for the front spot, possibly splitting some tones up to give more balance to the guitars and bass in the process. But fuck it, this sounds awesome. Visually everything is done in black and white and looks fucking awesome. Pretty much the entire layout looks to have been done without computers, based around some excellent illustrations with a few bits of collaged text (lyrics) mixed in. Very fucking cool. The bits of lyrics don't offer too much insight into what's going on, but combined with the visual aesthetic give you an idea of the attitude at work: "Bury it beneath the rotting oak slit it's thin wrists read the tarot of the whore, Her palms are lined with the signs of alien constellations for the joy of the vultures..." Bizarre, indeed. Take a little Louisiana grit in the form of Eyehategod and Crowbar, throw in some Black Sabbath and mid-era Godflesh, top it off with a tiny smattering of Exhorder (oh, it's in there), and you've got yourself a winner. If they keep getting better they'll smash your fucking existence. (7/10)
Running time - 37:57, Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Drull, Itchyhatetrigger, Coelacanth]
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