Album of the day: Lavagoat – S/T

Lovingly pinched from The Sleeping Shaman: Canada. There must be something in the water there that makes for such awesome metal bands…possibly beaver pee, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I hope they keep on adding more and more of it to the water supply, because that way we’ll keep getting bands like Lavagoat.

Lavagoat, a name that conjures up some pretty cool images, well for ME anyway, and a name that suits these four hirsute Canucks right down to the ground – blisteringly hot and EVIL. Coming on like some kind of genetic experimentation-spawned hybrid of High On Fire, Electric Wizard (when they were still, y’know, GOOD) and the more rockin’ side of Mastodon, these boys swagger and glower their way through forty-five minutes of prime-grade, white-hot METAL with aplomb.

‘Puritan’ lulls you into thinking ‘Meh, generic Stoner Doom’ upon opening with a movie sample, low-key bass and an Electric Wizard knock-off riff… BUT, once the ‘Matt-Pike-impersonating-Tom-G-Warrior’ vocals come in and the song picks up a bit more you’ll start to realise that this is actually AWESOME. Nodding along at a comfortable clip, some seriously tasty bass-fills, and a killer all-around tone soon make their presence felt, and when they break into a chugger, and you hear the word ‘Satan’, you’ll KNOW this is awesome. Throw in some sick guitar harmonies and death grunt-style exhalations and, well, that’s ME well and truly won over.

‘Old Man And The Sea’ starts off REAL strong, with a strummed acoustic intro riff that kicks in with a Mastodon / NWOBHM / Mercyful Fate feel, and some pummelling double-bass drumming. The vocals here are way harsher, kinda like Dave Edwards from Neurosis maybe, but it still sounds TASTY AS HELL. I’m particularly enamoured of the proggy bit that reminds me of later Death material that pops up three-quarters of the way through. Yessir, a real stormer.

Continue reading: The Sleeping Shaman – Lavagoat – S/T CD 2011.

Tags: Album of the day, Lavagoat, Paul Robertson, Somnambulist Sound System, stoner metal, stoner rock, The Sleeping Shaman

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 1:57 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.