Can you imagine my excitement? Quite recently, Monsieur Stu from Aesthetic Death informed me about a new Goatpsalm release. Hurray! Seriously, it had been way too long, for this act’s latest official recording (Downstream) was released in 2016 – with exception of Ash, the (unique) work with side-project Horthodox (which I have not reviewed, apparently??? – I feel ashamed). This specific record was created over a period of many years, from 2017 to 2025, at different moments and different places.
Beneath was done by Horth (vocals, synths, bass, samples, as well as production, mix and mastering, and the artwork) and Vaarwel (four and six stringed guitars and voices, as well as ‘ethnic’ instruments), and assisted by drummer W.S. Once more the album got released via UK’s sweetest Aesthetic Death, both digitally as physically; the latter being a three-folded (or six-panel) digipack CD. The artwork is quite explicit (voodoo-ish or ritualistic might be acceptable descriptions), but it surely does fit to the conceptual and the aural content.
This newest album, Beneath, consists of five parts, having a total running time of thirty-five minutes and something. And once again, it is a new chapter, seen from sonic point, within this project’s impressive world of aural creativity. It does contain elements from the former albums (even-though all of them were different too, yet internally connected at the very same time), and brings new visions and ideas as well. The past reinterpreted into a new present, for Goatpsalm are Servants to nobody…
The album opens with a short introduction, called Veve Of Smoke And Rum (01:41). It’s a ceremonial piece, mingling a whole scala of archaic, shamanic-used instruments, such as bells and other percussions (gong, chimes), strings and flutes. It sounds sort of meditative, coming with a mysterious vibe; a ritual to open the portal to a next stage…
Next comes Heart Of Damballah Wedo (04:20), which starts with a didgeridoo tune for just a couple of seconds (seven seconds, exactly). Very soon after, things turn into psychedelic proportions, with an alienated approach of Doom. Low-tuned strings, weird keyboards, progressive drum patterns and dreadful voices paint an obscure, psychoid landscape, where Funeral Doom (Woods Of Belial), Symphonic Death Metal (Sinoath, early Phlebotomized) and Psycho-Grind (Saw Throat, O.L.D.) seem to fuse. Injected by hypnotic synths, unusual leads (Lo Flux Tube’ish, if you want to) and down-earthed four-string tuning, the result is as unaccustomed as it is ingenious.
Spit Soil (05:52) opens with an ominous string-line, slowly moving, sedative, expanding. After a (short) while, things evolve towards funereal, psychoid, abyssal Doom of the most sinister kind. Ultimately gruesome growls, inventive yet often lunatic leads, a monstrous string rhythm section, eerie synths and calamitously beneficent drums get canalized into a specimen of capricious yet worshipful magnitude.
Kalbas Whispers Of Death (06:02) is another example of out-of-the-box thinking. The track starts with a mesmeric rhythm on drum (djembe-like percussion instrument), accompanied by sticks, which will be the spine throughout the whole hymn. Step by step, other instruments and voices enter, slowly building up without any exaggeration, continuously driven by that initial rhythmic pattern. First come some synth-lines and flutes, and a really foreign string picking - quite plain in execution yet opulent in result - then whispered vocals, more percussions (shakers?), reverberating bass lines and possessed voices. Towards the end, an amalgam of thunderous and ethnic percussions, odd strings, evil-sounding grunts and haunting sound effects sort of create a ritualistic eruption.
The album ends with the lengthy piece Exequies, which is sort of ‘divided’ into several segments. With its duration of 17:11 minutes, this composition takes almost half of the total running time of Beneath. The first section brings pure yet ritualistic Funeral Doom, monumental in execution, asphyxiating in atmosphere, mysterious in nature. For some reason, it sometimes reminds me of the first efforts by Void Of Silence (mind the suffocative sphere akin to Criteria Ov 666) or aforementioned Woods Of Belial, including the blackened aspects, the ritual sphere, and the gloomy attitude. At 03:55, things turn towards rather progressive, Post-laden territories, with weird guitar breaks, jazzy drum patterns, ominous flutes, esoteric synths and groovy basses. This stranger intermezzo enlarges at first, getting little more intense and persuasive, but at about seven minutes, things morph into a dreamy universe of Dark Ambient (with unusual samples, like the sound of seagulls?); then into a delusional aural psychosis (mind the manipulated voices, the anesthetizing synth-line, and the structurally high-standard yet somehow disordered percussion beats), before fading away in a trancelike nebula of silence’s fairness.
Once more, Goatpsalm delivered a gargantuan piece of Sonic Supremacy, exploring diverse territories of aural dimness. Solemnly assembling elements from distinct yet kindred genres - from traditional ritualistic Folklore over Dark Ambient and Drone, via Psychedelic Doom to extreme Funeral Death Doom Metal. These guys did it again, and Beneath might be their most decorous album to date. I hope we do not have to wait another ‘too many years’ for the next chapter within this band’s discography…
https://aestheticdeath.bandcamp.com/album/beneath
https://www.aestheticdeath.com/releases.php?mode=singleitem&albumid=7002
https://goatpsalm.bandcamp.com/album/beneath
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/goatpsalm
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/goatpsalm-0