Album Review: Slow Goat – Where The Wisest Fear To Tread
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
It’s only after the brief opening chimed bells of “Downward” do you get to hear what Portland, Oregon’s Slow Goat are all about. As second track “Fallen Child” comes to life around the minute mark, it makes you wonder why they needed the opening at all, as they generate enough heavy fuzzed out guitar to keep the listener entertained.
The quartet are led by Rosie Peterson on vocals, and this debut album has taken shape and been refined over the last four years. The band have commented that the album draws on “personal experience and a compulsion to look inward” but they want the listeners to look for their own meanings behind the songs. Next track “Visions/Fell Ritual” has a long and winding melody with a beautiful guitar sound from Daniel Black that really sets the mood and tone for what follows.
They delve into that wonderful doom/stoner rock intensity and blend it with a psychedelic edge to compliment the ethereal vocals, which don’t appear until much later but the rhythm of drummer Eric Bllombaum and bassist Adam Carter, take full control of this song as it flows effortlessly. “Love Like Water” has more power behind it, with that desert rock swagger as the bass crunches all over the composition and gets my head moving along in no time. You can sense that raw, gritty edge which lies behind their music and this is a big, powerful song.
Across their music you get a variety of vocal ranges from Peterson, and on the initially slower paced offering “Dark Procession” you get a softer presence, almost sinister at times, but it doesn’t overpower the solos and riff that are pouring out of the Black’s guitar. The pace picks up in the middle section to create a meandering song before it slows back down and leads into “Wilting”, which kicks off with a simple, but pleasing guitar tone and follows a similar pattern with a strong vocal over a hard-hitting rhythm.
Penultimate song “Sisyphus” has a more raucous feel about it, well, as raucous as a doom ladened riff can get I suppose. It adds more weight and heaviness to their overall sound, and is probably my favourite song on the album, before they end with “Under The Glass” as the brooding sound builds into a heavier, more evil sounding track. There’s a ghostly, yet soft and appealing vocal presence over the beastly bass and pounding drums. It’s another example of them mixing their styles extremely well and they’ve produced a great song to finish off their debut album with.
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