Pythagoras

The first time I heard this album was shortly after it was officially released thanks to a promotional website. It quickly called my attention due to the theme of the work, I am not aware of the existence of many black metal albums that deal with mathematical figures of Ancient Greece. As I researched the band, my curiosity grew as I realized that the leader and only member is a 23-year-old boy and that this album was the first of this project. Today, in 2020, “Goatchrist” has published 3 more albums, which I have pending to listen to see the evolution of their sound.

In “Pythagoras” we can find a great number of different elements and influences that J. Guilherme has managed to bring together and harmonize to a great extent, what at first may seem to us as avan garde black metal “Sigh” or “The Meads of Asphodel” style, soon becomes an amalgam of styles. “Worlds” dances between black metal and jazzy suites, “The Tetractys” contains a cheerful melody reminiscent of virtuoso pieces of romantic music. Pythogarean Solids” has psychedelic elements with those active keyboards that it could perfectly pass for a theme of “Black Magick SS”, with all this variety along the album we can observe that in no moment the succession of songs becomes repetitive and you can really see that J. Guilherme has a great number of diverse elements at the moment of composing his themes, even the instrumental ones are interesting, and they add a plus to the main themes.

In general, not only do I find a very solid sound on this album, but I am also surprised by the maturity of the compositions and how well he uses the instrumental variety so that the rhythm does not fall apart at any time, although he does not achieve this in the last part of the album. “The Death of Pythagoras” is the only song that I can't stand from this album, it sounds like pop shit with an annoying beat and a voice that seems to try to emulate the “Brit rock” bands, even though the chorus is catchy and the sax tries to save the song, it doesn't match with the rest of the album and it brings a disappointing end to what until that moment was being a fantastic album. I really fear that this type of songs will be the ones that carries weight in their next projects.

Maybe I have praised too much this album, but it has been a really nice surprise for me, it is not perfect and I think that together with what I have mentioned previously about “The Death of Pythagoras” I have to add that the pretentiousness of the lyrics has left me a negative feeling. I'm aware of the difficulty of writing good lyrics, and it's not that the lyrics of “Pythagoras” are bad, but it's just that the times when Pythagorean concepts are recited in the interludes (which happens a few times on the album) make me think more of a child trying to show how mature and intelligent he is in a very desperate way rather than actually causing the lyrics to sink in.

Even with these imperfections, “Pythagoras” marks the splendid birth of a young musical project that already tries to rub shoulders with the greats of the subgenre, it still lacks several steps and may even fall but I feel in the obligation to perpetually have an eye on “Goatchrist” until his music makes me believe otherwise. I would dare to classify “Pythagoras” as a modern classic and I think any fan of black metal/avant-garde should at least give it at least one listen.

The goofy ending is ten out of ten and I always welcome this kind of nonsense for finishing an album