Goat＜Colored Vinyl＞

After the mystical folk wanderings of their previous album, 2023s Medicine, the ever-mysterious Goat are back to peeling paint off the walls with their rollicking, blown-out take on psychedelic biker rock. Much like they did on 2022s Oh Death, the band rely heavily on grungy, serrated guitars that jump out of the speakers like snakes looking for a soft place to bite, while at the same time indulging as usual in all sorts of shamanistic sounds ranging from flutes and shakers to hammered piano chords. Add in the lung-busting vocals and dramatic arrangements that are filled with dynamic tension, and its another Goat album to treasure. Perhaps its a little more meandering than Oh Death, but still exciting and full of visceral thrills on songs like "Dollar Bill," which has some seriously nasty caked-on funk in the grooves and guitar work that would make Neil Young blanch, or the live-wire Afro-punk dance track "Frisco Beaver." They even slip in a somewhat game-changing twist when nobody was really expecting there to be one. Two tracks are inspired by the groups heretofore untapped love of hip-hop. "Zombie" is built on a rolling drum sample and doomy piano chords straight off a West Coast rap song circa 1992, then made extra weird thanks to some very gnarly guitar noise and dubby drum breaks. The album-ending "Ouroboros" takes a different approach; built on an uptempo drum loop and blasting out of the speakers on waves of fuzz bass and tightly funky guitars, the song sounds like the soundtrack to a classic cop-show chase scene. Think the Go! Team but not cute or the Beastie Boys but not annoying -- or Lalo Schifrin in a psychedelic reverie -- and thats just about right. It stretches out for over seven minutes, yet never gets boring thanks to the atmospheric shifts that see echoing saxes added, cascading spoken-word samples run through the mix like nightmares, and the usual guitar overload applied for good measure. Its a bracing end to the album and points to a promising direction the band could take in the future. Or it could just be a one-off and that would be fine since, as the rest of this excellent record proves without a doubt, theres more than enough gas left in Goats tank to keep them riding in style for years to come. ~ Tim Sendra