ALBUM REVIEW: III: Shaped By The Unlight – Goath

Germany’s GOATH have slowly but surely cemented their place as one of the shining lights of modern blackened death metal. Taking inspiration from old school black, death and thrash metal, the band have, over the course of their first two albums, established a reputation for creating an impressive take on the genre that embraces many of the familiar tropes of it, whilst simultaneously adding their own distinct style and flavour into it, placing the band head and shoulders above many of their contemporaries. Their latest album, III: Shaped By The Unlight, comes three years after the band’s excellent second record, II: Opposition, and further increases their reputation as one of the best blackened death metal acts on the planet.

Symbiosis of Vengeance And Guilt is a powerful start to the record, with a chunky, catchy opening riff that’s quite evocative of early SLAYER giving way to an equally intense and thrash inflected take on blackened death metal. The chaotic rhythms and ferocious vocals deliveries, combined with the tight and aggressive leads, sets an incredibly lofty bar, both in terms of quality and savagery.

The next two songs, Pretending to Serve While Raping and Shaped by the Unlight, are shorter, more focused, blasts of brutality, with a more energised and frenetic approach to the music on all fronts, from the cacophonous drumming to the forceful, blisteringly fast guitars and generally rabid gutturals. They’re both brief, but extremely effective, slabs of caustic blackened death metal, with an unrelenting, unpredictable edge to them that leaves an indelible impression on the album as a whole.

Dissolving Flesh Redemption, a similarly punchy and primitive affair, makes use of sonorous baritones and cleaner vocal styles and a sharper guitar tone to give this a much more immersive and streamlined sound, without losing any of the characteristic visceral pace or sludgy groove that has made the first three songs so fantastic. Epitome of Perpetual Rage has a controlled, but nonetheless fierce, sound that’s rooted solidly within death metal, with a few subtle elements of black metal thrown in, especially when it comes to the lead riffs. The punishing, rhythmic parts of the song are really what makes it excel though, giving this a huge, juggernaut sound that it’s hard not to appreciate.

Smoltification, another short, sharp shock of a track, provides plenty of jarring hooks and animated vocals which pierce the meatier death metal undercurrent for a grating, unnerving edge that works exceptionally well. The broodingly slow burning Clitless Loyalty slows the pace to a perpetual crawl initially, with deliberate guitars and a steady, military beat shifting suddenly into what is arguably one of the album’s more bestial sections, a dizzying blend of slick guitar work, booming vocals and precise, vehement drums, interspersed with weighty chugs, which ultimately makes this song stand out as one of the heavier and more unhinged offerings. Perception applies a few ethereal moments to the established vocals, bringing back the wider vocal range of Epitome of Perpetual Rage for a more atmospheric but still utterly primal sound which proves to be a great, monolithic twist on the bands core sound, resulting in a dramatic piece of music that adds some more depth to the album’s overall sound.

Impregnated With Black Fire, compared to many of the earlier numbers on the album that have a blunt and lean feel to them, follows in a similar vein to the previous song, utilising huge chords and a cavernous drum sound to build a far more bombastic climax, centred around measured guitar and bass hooks, domineering vocals and soaring, spartan leads that inject a coarse melodic sheen into the mix. Much like the preceding track, it’s a good change of pace that still has a solid, old school side to it, coupling a more expansive approach with GOATH‘s myriad influences brilliantly.

This album has a lot of the hallmarks that have served the likes of HATE and BELPHEGOR well in crafting timeless, memorable blackened death metal; a sludgy, rhythmic brand of death metal with some magnificent black metal flourishes courtesy of the lead guitars and feral vocals. But this album manages to add the bands own flavour into this, with classic black, death and thrash coalescing into a noxious blend of punishing moments, with a few vast, atmospheric parts peppered liberally throughout. In a world where a seemingly endless number of blackened death metal acts are more than happy to go through the motions or imitate what has informed them musically almost verbatim, GOATH are blazing their own trail, adding to the genre as opposed to mimicking its heavy hitters.

Rating: 9/10

III: Shaped By The Unlight is out now via Ván Records.

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