If someone hurtled towards you brandishing an Instrument of Death…you wouldn’t be alone in thinking ‘This needs a beautiful, classical and evocative piano intro’. Well, thankfully, the gloriously named Goat The Head have just that as they open their latest release ‘Death By Default’.
Now entering their 24th year of existence, and still looking about as sane as a bunch of hatters in a chemical factory, they maintain their hefty and sublimely comedic take on what is essentially bombastic death metal. Vocalist Per Spjøtvold is, I believe, responsible for both the rather sexy piano music as well as the hoarse, gravelly barks that deliver the lyrics throughout the record.
Highlights include the blackened rampage that is ‘Marok’s Lot’, the hammering grooves of the delightfully titled ‘Hungarian Finger’ and the colossal muck pile of nastiness that comes in the form of ‘Swedrosian Death March’.
Goat The Head deliver an EP with all the chunk and excellence that they delivered in their, more Bolt Thrower-esque maybe, 2007 release ‘Simian Supremacy’. However, this benefits from more production, an array of increased knob twiddling….and 25 minutes of stupendously enjoyable death metal.
Best Paired With: Ill-fitting spectacles, An unfashionable hair cut and Running into things at speed.
Reviewed by Jaff.
Goat The Head – Death By default EP is out now on Crispin Glover Records.
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