I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news: You’re going to Hell.
Really didn’t take that much, either. Turns out, it was the “sleeping with someone before marriage” deal. Huge bummer. All those hours in our youth wasted on speculation about the scales spookily tipping because we couldn’t put down Don’t Break the Oath or Hell Awaits. Nope. Pre-marriage porking. Hope that minute and thirty seconds in the back of that shitty, shitty Tercel was worth it.
And every transgression since then has just added more and more wood to the fire. At this point, you might as well not even bother with the early amends, because by the End Days your list of cons will surely be as long as God’s arm. And the pros? Well, let’s just say it ain’t looking good…
“Boy, you were kind as a motherfucker to your cat, weren’t you?” ~ God
Hell is going to be rough, too. You’ve got another thing coming if you think you’ll be tipping back IPA’s fireside with Ozzy and Rutger Hauer while Angelcorpse rips through an hour long set of your favorites. Satan wants to party, he doesn’t want to watch YOU party. No, you’ll be stuck in a tiny room with 200 screens of Kirk Cameron proselytizing 24/7 while a shirtless Dave Navarro skeezes through a 3000 hour-long version of “Under the Bridge.” And after about the 300th year when you woozily concede “you know, this really ain’t half bad,” in marches Michael Moore with the biggest fucking set of bagpipes you’ve ever laid eyes on and goddamn Carlos Mencia in tow.
H E L L
So where does this leave Archgoat? Well, these lads will likely get some cushier accommodations. After all, they play the sort of thing ol’ Lucifer wants to hear while he’s waxing his barbed pole to your howling torment. Big, thick, webbed evil. Deep, demonic, back’ards-chanting, straight-forward desecration from the oldschool. If you’re sick of reaching for the GD dictionary just to fully understand how them Orthodox black metal lyrics are gonna help rifle you into the fire, Archgoat’s got your back.
“Hail! Satan! Hail! Lucifer! Hail! Satan!”
Bam. Simple. That’s a lyric from “Grand Luciferian Theophany,” one of the slowest and most agonizingly loathsome numbers off The Apocalyptic Triumphator. Not since Sodom’s Persecution Mania have I heard a more beautifully morbid bass tone. And that gross lead at the end sounds like an angel weeping over the fact that they had to abandon their Incantation CDs for a set of fluffy wings.
Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in the Who-the-What-Now? I have no idea what these other bands are up to.
“Nuns, Cunts & Darkness” – not just the three key ingredients to a Kim Bendix Petersen soufflé, but a perfect way to kick off a record with a mixture of ugly speed and lethargic, infernal drudgery. I’ve mentioned this before with regard to the last Impetuous Ritual, but I absolutely love it when bands of this nature rattle off blast beats that sound like a demon whacking through a cord of wood. Chop chop chop chop chop chop Hell Hell Hell Hell HELL HELL HELL!! BURRRRRRN
Probably the best part about Archgoat, however, is the fact that they’re unafraid of laying down an absolutely savage groove – something you can do the Mashed Potato to while waiting for Asag to boil your fat down into a yeasty sickness. The album is stacked to the ceiling with them. If you can keep your toe from tapping past that three-minute mark of “Those Below (Who Dwell in Hell),” or during the last half of the closing “Funeral Pyre of Trinity,” you must already have one foot in the grave.
Grossest vocals, pulverizing swagger, sleazy leads, impudent depravity, and a beautifully plush production to button it all up under one giant, evil umbrella. If you’re gonna burn in Hell – and trust me, you will – you might as well enjoy the ride; The Apocalyptic Triumphator is the best material these goblins have delivered to date.
