Canadian metal! Saskatoon heavy four-piece Lavagoat defy expectation almost immediately on their 2010 self-titled by not just reveling in punkish Eyehategod-style sludge, as their name would lead one to expect they might. Rather, Lavagoat’s Lavagoat draws liberally from the well of post-Mastodon metallicism, mostly shirking off the “progressive” snobbishness in favor of raw angular pummel. In other words, drummer Graham (the whole band is first-name-only) keeps his feet busy. But even that isn’t the whole story with Lavagoat. The Cathedral-esque clean vocals that come across on cuts like “Magma,” the later “The Witch,” or even a bit cadence-wise on opener “Puritan” show that not only is Lavagoat offering more than the gruff, throaty, rhythmic growls of “Old Man and the Sea,” but that perhaps multiple songwriters are at play behind the material. The liner notes credit the full band, and both bassist Sean and guitarist Graeme handle vocal duties – Lavagoat is rounded out by guitarist Jimi – but there’s enough diversity at play here to make me think the riffs driving the songs have more than one source. Provided a band can pull the different parts together enough to make something cogent from it (which I’d argue Lavagoat do pretty well here), that’s never a bad thing.

But they are heavy. Whatever road they take to get there, Lavagoat don’t ever lose sight of the metal side of stoner metal, even working a section of crushing riffs into “Magma” and a scathing solo into the building instrumental part collection “Interstellar Deserts Azathoth” – perhaps the most aptly-named track on Lavagoat for its varying moods. The aforementioned “Old Man and the Sea” and middle-album slice “The House” find the band at their most metallic, the latter playing off it with a kind of self-aware use of pig screaming (that could be a sample, or it could be guest vocalist Simon Braun). That said, “Rome,” which starts out more ethereally doomed, later boasts death growls amid one of the most Leviathan-derived riffs Lavagoat here concoct – so it’s not necessarily just a case of compartmentalizing the band’s heaviness into this track or that – the metal can show up anywhere. When it does, it’s well met by Lavagoat’s stoner side, “The Witch” meeting the aftermath of “Rome” head on and complementing it with thick groove and a heathen lyrical schematic.

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