Goat Synagogue is a new Greek band, formed in 2010, it comes from Athens and it consists of four members. Goat Architect, the basic composer and writer of the lyrics of the band, plays the guitars, Divine Desecrator plays the drums, Proserpine plays the keyboards and Lycanthropos does the excellent in my opinion vocals. As they write in the press release which come along with their promo, they want to transfer the feeling and the atmosphere which have the releases of the Greek scene at the early 90s, something that they absolutely achieve. It is a band which give the proper honor to the lost sound and the romantic view that the bands had back then... Devoted to the underground, nostalgic of the true Greek BLACK METAL sound, they try with their attitude, their sound and their courage to remind to the decadent "giants" of the past how the true Greek BLACK METAL should be played... Many people will say that they are another copy of the creators of the genre, others will say that they are outdated, we say that we deal with a very promising band... Time will show if we will come true or not... This promo is released as demo by Forgotten Wisdom Productions (250 copies) in cassette format.
This promo begins with an intro track which really made me feel anxious about the quality of the rest of the album. Bad recitation, keyboards that don't have anything to say, trying to set a Satanic, horror scene really unsuccessfully. Fortunately the following was different... The two tracks that follow are baptised in the glorious time of the birth of the underground scene in Greece and the creation of the true identity of that sound. The rhythm in the first track is mid-tempo with some speedy outbursts to the ending, like Varathron. In the second track the rhythm speeds up with more thrash rhythmic guitars with more mid-tempo passages. The production is amazing! Do not misunderstand me... It is muddy, foggy and dark but it attributes brilliantly to the atmosphere and the feeling that the band wants to create. The guitars are good and so are the drums, the only objection i have is the keyboards, although they are good and fit with the sound, they play higher and they cover the rest of the instruments many times. I left the vocals in the end, Because i found them awesome. The vocalist has tried to catch the feeling and the style of that era but i think that his performance is better. He has based his vocals on his influences and he has created through them his own personal style which remind of that era but not copy it. Something that i thought many times about the riffs which remind of Varathron a lot and in some special parts they are the same. Apart from this fact that bothered me, there are many good ideas in these tracks and especially in the thrashier riffs that show inspiration. Nevertheless this demo is a very good attempt which i recommend to check. I'm looking forward for their next work.
Law of the Headless Architect
Tracklist:
- A Dome Like a Nightsky (Intro)
- 33
- The Goatbomb Opressor
