Goat - Commune

A few years back, when my wife and I were living in London, we were introduced to a couple - C and A - by some friends. A worked for a recording label doing promotion, band management and going to gigs. C worked as a creative director for an up and coming design agency. We got to know C and A pretty well over a couple of years of dinner parties, house parties and summer BBQs. Being both in the creative industries, C and A had some pretty wile and interesting parties, always with very loud music ranging from the classic (A had a Nick Cave obsession) to the obscure.

C and another of our friends had once owned and run a record store (selling actual records), so we would inevitably end up talking about music. Talking to C was probably the first indication I had that my music tastes, as alternative as they felt to me, were really pretty mainstream. C would talk about bands that existed only on vinyl and had existed for barely a week back in the early 90's, then play you one of their songs claiming it to be the inspiration for Arcade Fire's sound (and I'll be damned if it didn't sound exactly like Arcade Fire but recorded ten years earlier).

Ordinarily it would be hard to stay in a conversation like that for too long without overdosing on pretension and vintage leather, but C was never critical or judgemental, just passionate and very knowledgeable.

Once, over dinner, C let slip that he had set up a recording label years ago as part of the record store. While it had never really taken off, he had kept it going by releasing small runs of obscure but just-popular-enough bands. At the time I asked him what they'd released lately and he started talking about a band called Goat that he was very excited about. This was before Spotify and Google Music and, since I didn't have a record player, that was where the story ended.

Then, a few months ago, I saw on C's Instagram that he was promoting a new album by Goat called Commune. I searched Google Music and was surprised to find four or five albums, including their new one. I put it on and was very pleasantly surprised. Commune was then on high rotation at work, in the car and on the bus.

Their music is described as experimental fusion rock. I have no idea what that means. Most of the album is instrumental, although there are sometimes vocal tracks hidden in the mix. There's a lot of percussion and electronic instruments which blend together in a bit of a Pink Floyd-Paul Simon-Portugal. The Man wall of sound.

It's hard to pick out tracks because they all sort of roll together from the start of the album to the end, but I will say that it starts strong and builds. The finale to Bondye, second last track, is a furious crescendo to the album - I don't recommend being behind the wheel when you listen to it as you might find yourself all of a sudden driving way too fast!

It's a cool album and I really enjoyed discovering this band. They have wicked album art and only ever perform in freakish masks and outfits. Plus, their band website is still using blogspot so they can't be that bad.

I give the album 4 out of 5 and I hope you enjoy it! (Download FLAC : MP3)