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Review & Full Album Stream: Goatess, Blood and Wine

Goatess Blood and Wine

[Click play above to stream Goatess’ Blood and Wine in full. Album is out Friday on Svart Records.]

Let’s get it established right away that the third Goatess full-length, Blood and Wine, continues the thread of quality output the Swedish outfit began with their 2013 self-titled debut (review here) and pushed forward on their 2016 second album, II: Purgatory Under New Management (review here). Blood and Wine arrives holding firm to an every-three-year pace and to notions of traditional Sabbathian heavy alike, but the band’s circumstances have changed considerably. Guitarist Nicklas Jones and drummer Kenta Karlbom are the only remaining original members of the four-piece, and along with bassist Samuel Cornelsen, who comes aboard as at least the third low-end specialist with whom the band have worked over the course of their decade together, Goatess also have a new frontman in vocalist Karl Buhre. Also of Stockholm-based death metallers CrucifyreBuhre takes the place of Christian “Chritus” Linderson (still of Lord Vicar, ex-Count Raven, Saint Vitus, etc.), and therein lies the inevitable narrative of the record.

At 65 minutes long, Blood and Wine tips the scales of manageability, but the songs it collects groove enough and are memorable enough to effectively carry the listener through that extended run, whether it’s the loosely drifting verses of “Jupiter Rising” or the weighted landmark hooks of “Dead City” early on and the penultimate “Stampede,” both of which stand out in Goatess catalog as a whole, no matter who’s in the band. Songwriting has always been Goatess‘ secret weapon, and it comes more to the forefront with Blood and Wine, and in bookending the record with its two longest tracks in opener “Goddess” (8:15) and closer “Blood and Wine” (14:07), they create a context of immersion that grabs attention from the first lead lines of “Goddess” and holds through the extended fading jam of the finale. All of this is to say that while invariably there are those for whom Blood and Wine will be defined by the change in personnel up front — and fair enough — Goatess remain unflinching in their commitment to the proliferation of high grade traditionalist doom heavy.

And riffs. Oh, they’ve got riffs. Jones leads much of the proceedings throughout, and as Goatess dig into rockers like “Black Iron Mark” and “Dark Days,” there’s an undercurrent of classic heavy rock that comes through in a way that Buhre‘s vocals only help emphasize. The latter of those is the centerpiece of the tracklisting and also the shortest inclusion at 4:23, and it’s about as straight-ahead a rocker as I can ever recall the band putting together, though they’ve had a few at this point. Still, a raw production sound on Karlbom‘s snare and the manner in which Buhre follows the rhythmic patterning of the guitar gives “Dark Days” a rudimentary mood that suits the sans-frills structure, and there’s plenty of heft in the subsequent “Dunerider” as the lead tone recalls the opener but moves into a speedier chug and finds the vocals engaging some effective layering in the hook that one hopes will become a point of further development in the future.

goatess

“Dunerider” is the opener of the second of Blood and Wine‘s two LPs, so perhaps its mirroring “Goddess” is intentional, but it works either way, no less so than the psych flourish of “Jupiter Rising” seeming to be in sonic conversation with the languid build in the second half of “What Lies Beneath” at the outset of side B. Amid a generally more swinging, rocking approach, there’s still plenty of doom to be found in Goatess‘ sound, they’ve simply become more dynamic in how it’s applied. As resistant as a fan of their first two records might be to such a change, it’s not actually so radical a leap from one to the other so much as it is a readjustment of the balance that’s been at the core of their work all along. There are shifts in style, sure, but it’s nothing that those who heard and dug the self-titled or its follow-up shouldn’t be able to get on board with, barring any “no Chritus no Goatess“-type griping.

Maybe that’s inevitable to some degree in the current social media climate even as it applies to underground heavy and doom, and I’m not trying to minimize the presence Linderson brought to Goatess at all. What remains, however, is a band who set themselves to the task of reestablishing their place in a heavy pantheon where they’d previously found vigilant welcome, and, I’d argue, doing that to righteous effect. A second debut? Not really, but certainly a debut for Buhre, who gives flashes here of the singer he might become in Goatess going forward, as heard on “Dunerider” and again in the side D-consuming title-track, which effectively summarizes Blood and Wine‘s blend of doom and rock while bringing a more open sensibility to the proceedings than Goatess have ever had before.

That jam takes hold shortly after about minutes in and carries through in semi-hypnotic fashion, the band essentially riding the final riff into oblivion and stretching it outward across a wash-soaked landscape before the march moves into its long fadeout. Certainly Goatess have had long tracks before, but “Blood and Wine” owns its 14 minutes with a sense of mastery that is very much evidence of a band on their third album knowing where they’ve been before and willing themselves to push beyond it. Given the changes they’ve undertaken since the last offering, Goatess do succeed in that progression on Blood and Wine — much, honestly, to one’s relief as a fan of the first two LPs. And in some subtle ways, they demonstrate where they might go in terms of style in the future as the chemistry with their new lineup more fully develops. More harmonies, more toying with structure, and a malleable sense of weight and production style can only be assets to Goatess from here on out, as they certainly help make their third record a victory in much more than let’s-just-keep-going fashion. This is a band who still have more to say.

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Goatess on Bandcamp

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