siLLy puPPy The war metal section of black metal seems to be growing by leaps and bounds in 2019 with not only new releases by classic bands such as Diocletian and Seges Findere but finds a whole new cast of beastial noise bringers to the mix! New releases from Esoteric Order of the Red Goat, Mothersuperior, Savage Necromancy, Ygarokk, Death Worship, Pig’s Blood, Warbrother, Morbital, Sankara, Eggs of Gomorrh, Abysmal Lord and Tetragrammacide just to name a few DEMON-strate that this little loud and obnoxious subgenre is in no danger of falling into oblivion any time soon. Add to the list is the debut album by one of Norway’s newest noisemakers - GOATKRAFT and it’s also clear that the frigid darkness of the Scandinavian northlands continues to generate angsty youths who love to take out steam through the most vile and horrific sounds possible!

Emerging from Bergen, the city of Immortal, Burzum, Gorgoroth and Taake also clearly shows that this little city on Norway’s west coast is also in no danger of losing its touch for delivering the black metal goods. GOATKRAFT formed in 2017 and quietly released its debut EP in the form of “Angel Slaughter” the following year. Now one year later in 2019 comes the band’s debut full-length affectionally titled SULPHUROUS NORTHERN BESTIALITY, a true northern brutal slice of bestial black war metal in the vein of the most aggressive and energetic miscreants this little nook in the black metal universe can muster up. Living up to the standard of the war metal world, GOATKRAFT delivers a crude slice of lo-fi black metal fortified with the rampage of death metal drenched in pure eeeeeee-vile! Steeped in the blood of the pioneers such as Blasphemy, Archgoat and Beherit, GOATKRAFT don’t reinvent the wheel but rather blow it to smithereens.

Falling into the same camp as newer bands like Weregoat, GOATKRAFT exudes a purely Satanic saturation of which the hellish album cover art is what attracted me to sample SULPHUROUS out of the many war metal albums releases as of late. While the album cover gets a full five stars for its perfecting the mysterious nature of the evil underground, musically GOATKRAFT don’t exactly top my list for epic black metal releases. While gazing towards the past to tritone based Darkthrone in its earliest second wave black metal compositional flair, GOATKRAFT does strike the perfect retro pose while adding new layers of aggression to their 21st century angst but unfortunately the album (as do many in the war metal zone) comes off as a one-trick pony with incessant power chords with tremolo picking and incessant blastbeat drumming that blurs into a continuous headache inducing machine at full speed for almost the entirety of the album’s playing time.

With a running time of just under 29 minutes, the album buzzes along on a relentless rampage with only the opening “Yawns From The Abyss” and the intermission “Invocation Of The Lord Of Huracan” providing some dark ambient ritualistic noise to demarcate some sort of contrast. Other than those two short snippets of sound, SULPHUROUS NORTHERN BESTIALITY tends to sound like a typical lashing out by a drug overdosed schizoid who screams and snarls until blood gushes out of every orifice. While the grim riffing and brutal bombast are certainly up to snuff in generating the proper degrees of musical violence and lupine savagery, the lack of any sort of deviation from the overall plan does tend to create a bit of monotony on this nihilistic journey. In the end a decent war metal album but not in the top ranks of the sub and certainly doesn’t match the majesty presented by the album cover art but nevertheless, GOATKRAFT provides a distinctly morbid brutal sound and a band to look out for in the future.