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Swedish neo-psychedlic outfit replace their marker.

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It’s always difficult to get excited about music that appears slightly too one-dimensional. You know the bands. The sort that pilfer and stay in the hard-worn lanes of genres, bands that have come and gone before them not really adding anything new to the mix, but rather congesting up the over-saturated airwaves. It becomes a lot to separate from one form to another as they all dabble from the same pot of influence.

To a reviewer who often occupies an awful lot of free time filtering through new music, it’s quite difficult to find something that get us up out of our seats.

Luckily, we have the likes of Goat. Supposedly born from a Swedish commune where members come and go, Goat are one of those elusive groups shrouded in mystery, experimental wonderment and dazzling instrumental prowess. They keep themselves to themselves, wearing masks and costumes to let the music do the talking. It works quite effective. The fact of the matter is, you don’t need to know anything about the band to listen and understand their world.

At the heart of it all, Goat‘s music finds itself often in the territory of psychedelic sounds. The likes of King Gizzard and Mystic Braves immediately come to mind initially. But the mood soon deviates to something bigger, as it takes on hard rock, stoner-rock, funky-jazz inspired rhythms and freeform workings-out that mark up a great deal of spit-ball energy, flair and pizzazz.

While it may only be 40 minutes long across 8 tracks, it feels very much like the one. Goat‘s ideas of traversing the plains of adventure in life or questioning the moralities of life’s sins, Goat‘s storybook remains cohesive. Each track blends from one stage into another. The hard-rock fuzz of Jack White-esque Dollar Bill is one for the biker road-trip, while the slower more contemplative of Goat Brain is a global groove tipped perhaps somewhere in the Arabic quarters. Fully alive vocals enrich a swathe of guitar noodling.

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The self-titled one marks the bands’ eighth reimagining, with the ever-so delightful Headsoup in 2021 being a firm fan-favourite from the Swedes. This time, it has to be said that their self-titled here is some of Goat’s best. It’s remarkably emphatic and deliciously groovy. Get it while it’s hot.