Rating:
'Requiem' is not just a great album, it’s an exercise in world creation in a way quite unlike any other band.
Goat albums pretty much always come with the prefix ‘highly anticipated’. And for good reason – the deep enigmatic band have continually managed put out incredible albums, whilst also maintaining their reputation as one of the best live psych bands around. Their latest album, ‘Requiem’ does not fail to live up to expectations, from start to finish being a joyous celebration.
Union of Sun And Moon opens the album in a wonderfully tribal and somewhat childlike fashion – doing that entirely Goat thing, blending coherent lyrics with that of the other, making for something that seems far more like a mystic chant. It’s a pattern that runs throughout the album. It seems like they’ve returned to a slightly more naïve and light approach to their distinctive music. There’s something intuitive how the songs are projected, despite being clearly carefully crafted, they always seem far more improvised, as though they are being drawn out from some meditative dream right before your very eyes (or in fact ears). And then you have Ubuntu where we come full circle, the end slowly relaying the opening track, constructing a perfect sense of oneness.
Much of the album focuses, like in previous releases, upon the gradual build up of a song, which only adds to the sense that you’re actually listening to some obscure spiritual music, not in fact a wacky spaced out psych band from Sweden (if even that can be considered the truth). They’ve also drawn influences from far and wide to make this soundscape. Psychedelic Lover samples a clearly Arabic call to prayer whereas Try My Robe seems far more like an eastern European folk song or sea shanty. The only major statement from Goat we have regarding the album is that it is their ‘folk’ album, and it certainly is a fitting description. Music from all over have been merged into some wonderful new chimera.
It never ceases to impress that Goat have somehow carved out a unique sound that sounds like the folk music of some outwardly, out of time nation. 'Requiem' is not just a great album, it’s an exercise in world creation in a way quite unlike any other band. Poppy Waring
