So here we are with installment #2 of what I'm calling the “goat” series. If you read my last review, you'll know that I am writing a series of reviews of bands and albums that have “goat” in the band name or album title. I'm not sure what it is about metal but there is an awful lot of references to goats. Actually, I do know what it is. Goats are metal, goats are satanic, goats are where it's at.
Blackwolfgoat is an interesting band. I've heard some of their previous work and it seems to be all instrumental. This album is entirely instrumental. There are 3 spoken word vignettes, all pertaining to drone maintenance, and 7 songs. The songs are primarily made up of layers of guitars, although there is some bass here and there and one song has an 8-bit sounding drum track. The droning part of the songs seem to be composed of each guitar playing the same part repetitively throughout the song, creating a droning effect, while one guitar track plays a lead type part over the top of all that. I've probably made it sound a lot more complicated than it is. Basically, just lots and lots of guitars. Some of it is electric, some of it is acoustic.
It's an interesting concept, because a lot of times this music is performed with electronics rather than actual instruments such as guitars. A couple of these songs work really well for me, but the rest of them are not really my cup of tea. I can get behind the idea and dig it for a few tracks, but for me anyway there is not a lot of real enjoyment. I knew in the course of doing these “goat” reviews I would probably run afoul of our mandate here at the Ripple Effect, which is that we only write about things I love. And not all music, like this, is for everyone.
I don't really know what genre you'd bundle these guys up in. I wouldn't really call this metal in any way, but some really hip guy would tell me it's post-black-trance-psych or some nonsense genre like that. A lot of these tracks have a rock feel to them for me. If you are a fan of experimental stuff and you like to try out something that is definitely out of the mainstream, this is a release for you. In my experience, most people want to be able to wrap their arms around an album and call it metal, or country, or dance pop. If you are one of those people that needs things clearly defined this is probably not your release. To each his own, as the saying goes.
- ODIN
