Goat

GOAT might describe this third release as their “folk” album but truthfully that’s no less ambiguous than saying they usually play rock. Since their 2012 debut record, ‘World Music’, the costume-dwelling, publicity-shy Swedes have coalesced garage, blues and krautrock into an Eastern-tinged form of psychedelia that sounds like little else. Admittedly, the first few songs on ‘Requiem’ do involve the obligatory pan flute and acoustic guitar, with opener ‘Union of Sun and Moon’ even beginning with birdsong and coming off like an LCD-induced Jethro Tull cover.

Instrumental third track ‘Temple Rhythms’ also brings flute to the fore, coupled with piano, a hypnotic drum beat and not much else. Soon though, folkish whimsy gives way to GOAT’s 1960s acid-rock proclivities: the back end of ‘Alarms’ is drenched in scuzzy guitar, as is the aptly-named ‘Goatfuzz’. Elsewhere, the band have peeled back some of the static, beefed up the melodies but left the tribal rhythms locked into place, such that ‘Requiem’ is broadly a more immediate affair than 2014’s ‘Commune’; stuff like ‘Trouble in the Streets’ and ‘Try My Robe’ could have easily appeared on that LP but wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable.

All that said, the best thing on here is an instrumental called ‘Goatband’, which swirls its way around a sax solo for nearly eight minutes. More of this, please. You’re not yet done with GOAT.