End of Man

Hellgoat is a three piece black metal band from the Atlanta, Georgia area. Having formed in 2004, the band has amassed quite a cult following, in no small part because of their vicious live performances. The band's discography is basically hit or miss, with some releases being fairly solid, yet generic, American black metal, such as their sophomore Death Conquers All, while others are laughably pitiful displays of the rawest of lo-fi productions available.

End of Man is the band's 2014 EP, which features two tracks of raw as hell black metal. Clocking in at just under nine minutes, you would think that Hellgoat would want to go straight for the throat, but instead they dick dance around for a minute and a half with a shoddy interlude of ambient noise that builds into some type of bestial growling before diving into the music; so really, that leaves us with seven minutes of music (that's leaving out the other atmosphere building ambient piece on the second track as well).

It's usually kind of difficult to get a grasp with what a band is trying to accomplish on a two track promo, but that's certainly not the case with End of Man. After the intro subsides, we're greeted with seven minutes of grainy, raw black metal. Aside from a few mild breaks into proto-black styling, the band's style consists of extremely fast blasting drums and rather simplistic, repetitive trem picking. It's pretty much hyper drive for the seven minutes of music, but with the extremely raw production, it makes things difficult to truly appreciate. The drums production, in particular, has the cymbals way too high in the mix and the bass drum way too low. The guitar sound is scratchy and grainy, never really coming into its own in the mix, which is dominated by vitriolic raspy screams and crashing cymbals.

The few moments when the band sounds spot on, is, not surprisingly, when they slow things down with a catchy riff and pummeling bass line, like during the breaks on “Demonic Worship of the Horned Beast”. When everything slows down, you actually have a chance to focus on the music, instead of just being repeatedly hit over the head with waves of blasting black metal. Even as a fan of some of the most bestial, bottom dwelling bands in the realms of black metal, I just can't find much enjoyment here. Their sophomore album, Death Conquers All, used pretty the much same formula as here, but it was actually a ripping good time. The dark and enigmatic presence of their live performances is missing leaving End of Man sounding amateurish and haphazardly thrown together.

Written for The Metal Observer