Band/Artist: Goatpsalm
Release House: Aesthetic Death
Genre: Dark Ambient Metal
One Sentence Synopsis: “An aura that’s both doomed and transcendent at the same time.” – No Clean Singing
Series: Standalone
Single/EP/Album: Album
Release Date: February 29, 2016
Running Time: 58 minutes
MSRP: £5.00 (which is about ~$7 USD)
Discount Link: N/A
Website: Click Here
Music Video: Click Here
Purchase Site: Click Here
Reviewed by: Reverend Leviathan
Final Score: 5 Moons (out 5)
In 2009 two members of the black/death metal band Sickrites conjured into being the unfathomable entity that is Goatpsalm.
The line-up of Goatpsalm has been as free flowing as their music, spirits arrive and spirits depart and after the release of their second album, Erset La Tari, which delved into the black beliefs, lore and legend of Babylon and Mesopotamia, they were joined by multi-instrumentalist Vaarwel, also of Frozen Ocean. The result of this injection of creativity and vision is Downstream.
Theme
We begin our journey Downstream by stumbling upon “Grey Rocks.” You hear the sounds of nature (streams, birds and insects, which will come up throughout the album) and then come the deep bass and mystical sounds of keyboards followed by the quiet whisper of vocals. Once the distorted guitar makes an entrance you know the journey will be worthwhile.
The beautiful sound of clay flutes and tribal-like percussion bring us to “Flowers Of The Underworld,” drawing us closer to the complex mixture of ambience and doom with heavy guitars and death metal growls accompanied by female chanting. After passing the relaxing “White Sea” we come upon an “Orphan” that gives us a good mixture of noise, screaming and chanting, preparing us for the more death metal influenced “Of Bone and Sinew,” possibly the heaviest, hardest hitting song on the album.
The mood calms down with “The Waylayer (A Great Spring Hunger).” A mouth harp, male vocal chants and a soft beating drum slowly draws us into acoustic and heavy guitars that bring us to the end of our journey “Downstream.” We end where we began with the quiet whispers building into the death metal growls; a very powerful entrance and exit.
Presentation
Downstream was my introduction to Goatpsalm and I think I want to be more than just acquaintances. What these musicians have created by coming together is very mystifying. You have death metal growls mixed with beautiful female chanting, ambient moods mixed with heavy guitars and none of them overpowering the other. The whole album is very relaxing with the electronic elements and acoustics. I only wish I had a lyric sheet in front of me so I could say more about the lyrical content, but from what I can gather it appears they are still drawing on their mythic themes, and the words I was able to understand are very poetic in nature.
Gothic Fit
Dark ambience, pure atmosphere, touches of doom, hints of blackness, hypnotic enchantment, enticing strangeness; all words that many of us in the Goth scene use to describe ourselves. Downstream contains all of these elements along with the lyrics that speak of the dark sides of mythology mixed with darker emotion.
Closing Thoughts
Until Goatpsalm’s Downstream I had never heard the complexity of doom, metal and ambient put together in such an amazingly smooth working style. As a fan of all of those styles I was extremely satisfied hearing them all at once.
Theme: 5.0 Moons
Presentation: 4.5 Moons
Gothic Fit: 4.0 Moons
Final Score (not an average): 5.0 Moons
