I know, right? This metal obsession with goats is getting a little carried away.I've reviewed albums with goat vulva and goat semen either in the album title or band name.And I did a run of reviews a while back where all the bands or album titles had “goat” in their name.There seems to be no shortage of bands dedicating themselves to the idea that goats are somehow Satanic.I haven't known a lot of goats, but they seem pretty mellow to me.Who knew?
Goat Semen are an interesting band.They have been prowling around Peru for 13 years now before finally getting the opportunity to release this, their debut album.They released a demo and have been on a few splits, but this is them shooting their first load, so to speak.Many thanks to the fine folks at Hells Headbangers for this release.It's another shining example of how good Central and South American metal really is.Oh, and the album title?If you're not up on your Latin, it means “I Am Satan”, so these guys are just not messing around on any level.When you've waited 13 years to unleash your music on the world, you apparently go for broke.
So what does Goat Semen sound like?This is brutally wonderful death metal, the kind they don't make too often any more.A lot of death metal has acquired tinges of melody, or black metal, or metalcore.Nothing wrong with any of that, but this is the pure stuff, the vrai de vrai as they say in French.Pummeling drums lead the assault along with buzz saw sounding guitars, a singer who sounds like he's gargling glass and comes up with all kinds of vocalizations that shouldn't come from a human throat.The bass holding everything down somewhere in the mix.The production is clear enough that you can hear pretty much what is going on, but nowhere near what you would call pristine.If you like this stuff, its 39 minutes of pure bliss.That's the other good thing.They don't weigh this down with 15 songs.They get in, destroy, and then they're out.
Favorite tracks for me are “Holocausto”, “Altares De Pandemonium”, and the album masterwork, “Hambre, Peste, Guerra y Muerte”.As I've said before, I'm a big fan of songs that sound like their titles, and “Holocausto” and “Altares De Pandemonium” both deliver in big ways.“Altares” especially is just 4 minutes of batshit crazy.And “Hambre” is an amazingly good song.Over 10 minutes in length, it keeps going and growing and mutating and never gets old because it is so good.My only regret is that I don't speak Spanish so I don't understand what most of it is about.Most likely nothing good for mankind.
Go out and buy this on CD or vinyl, or both, and then you can utter a phrase you probably never thought you would: “Hey man, why don't you come over and we'll spin some Goat Semen”.
-ODIN