Here is a great review of Goat's new album Commune by Danny Riley for The Quietus. Album is released on 22 September.
"When approaching the follow-up to a record as unilaterally praised and, on a personal level, so intoxicatingly enjoyable as Goat's 2012 debut World Music, all kinds of anxieties are inevitably thrown up regarding the new work's comparative merit. Which is why for this writer, on hearing how the psych journeymen chose to open their latest record Commune – with the ominous clang of a temple bell (like a theological inversion of the opener on Black Sabbath's debut) – it felt oddly apt, fateful almost. It was as if they knew I was scared to listen to the record; they responded by scaring me further with ecclesiastical percussion instruments.
Goat should be given full credit for inspiring this sense of meaning and excitement; the album that follows is no stylistic leap forward for the band, yet it still exercises a deeply persuasive power over your head and hips. They largely stick to the heavy, kinetic, afro-influenced rock that proved such a winning formula, the only obvious developments being that the guitarists seem to be taking more cues from desert-rockers like Tamikrest and Tinariwen, and the songs show an increasing preference for subtlety over immediacy in the hooks department. Yet despite the apparent lack of new ideas here, the undeniable success of this work lies in Goat's deepening and development of the musical and spiritual themes presented on in World Music..."
Read the rest of this glowing review here: The Quietus
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