Goat - Requiem 2xLP

Label: Sub Pop

Our Review:

The back-story to the Swedish collective Goat is so implausible that it must be the stuff of fiction. The group has laid claim to hailing from an isolated Swedish village with a convoluted history of numerous, constantly evolving incarnations of a band called Goat all loosely aligned with a voodoo rituals that were imported aeons ago from Africa. Regardless of the truthiness to such a tall tale, Goat is a formidable polyglot of psychedelic hypnosis, fuzzed-out garage pop and Afro-rock melodies. On their first album World Music, Goat ripped though their voodoo grooves of impossibly catchy tunes that melded the Stooges and Fela Kuti into a seamless tangle of darkly ritual incantations and libidinal frenzy. Requiem marks the third album for this incarnation of Goat, who've stated that this is their "folk" record. Goat may have unplugged from many of their amps, but there's still quite a dervish of energy through their hypnotic tracks. Instead of many of the Zamrock heaviness which were found on World Music, Goat pick up highlife and desert blues structures in their brighter, sunnier grooves. Much of the work is instrumental and sprawl across the rhythmic complexities that harkens to other occidental adventurers of the Empty Quarter, especially the more sensible aspects of the Sun City Girls and Master Musicians of Bukkake.