Goat Cunt

Goat Cunt is everything you’d expect based on the title. It’s fast, raw as hell and delivered with a punk spirit that’s palpable from the first seconds of this buzzsaw-guitar-and-skank-beat-laden tape. Soul Butcher’s vision of black metal is primitive in a satisfying, intentional way - I've heard plenty of bands release uninspired and poorly-performed tracks and chalk their failings up to "punk influence" but that's not an issue here. Soul Butcher is tight and together, even as the songs themselves seem ready to burst apart at the seams.

Much of the punk influence can be found in the guitars; there are far fewer riffs here than there are simple chord progressions. This is no matter, however; the songs aren’t long enough for simplicity to cause trouble, and the guttural beer-soaked howls that make up the vocal performances do more than enough to make up for it anyway. The riffier tracks are a definite high point, however; "Moon Throne" and the title track are standouts, borrowing the non-stop drum battery and eternally-minor-key tonality of early 90s BM and filtering it all through a sieve of simplicity, ferociousness and necro production.

If you're into atmosphere, technicality, or philosophy, this one ain't for you. There's nothing on offer here besides vomit, violence and vileness - the very essence of Black Fucking Metal. I dig the translucent toxic-green tape shell too, though I do wish it were a bit louder - I had to turn my stereo up to almost twice its usual level just to hear everything clearly. This is a tape that demands to be played loud, after all.

Serbian one-entity outfit Soul Butcher - headed by Nocturnal Goatlord - takes no prisoners. Giving a taste of things to come with a single in 2018, Primitive Rawness , Soul Butcher has now prepared a putrid cut of prime flesh, Goat Cunt , which should fill even the most cavernous of pallid flesh abdomens.

Soul Butcher roars forward from the opening note, “Isolated”, blackened d-beat brutality biting at the gates - cutting gums on chain link fence. Goat Cunt places all of its requisite parts in exactly the right places, no single part drowning out any of the others. Soul Butcher hammers iron nails into the line between clean and filthy; as would some warlock junkie straddling warspells and warneedles and yet still maintaining the discipline to employ them.

The drums throughout follow a savage d-beat tempo, propelling the mix along a vitriolic path of morbid destruction, maintaining a mid-paced speed throughout. There are some exceptions to this however, with the double kick bass drum section toward the end of “Now Fuck Off” a perfect example of the drums escaping the d-beat template laid down by countless first-wave devotees and acolytes.

Soul Butcher’s riffing style is what one would expect from a black/punk/thrash entity such as this. Infernal and unapologetic, Soul Butcher will have even the most static of acolytes banging their skulls and hungering for more of the catchy power chords on offer. Tremolo riffing does feature on the release, adding an eclectic and varied air, and is featured mostly on the mighty “Moon Throne”, which evokes best the raw black metal side of the spellcraft on offer. Goatlord intones rabid, manic barks throughout and this style fits the sound like a knife to a wound. A tinge of raw black metal shades the vocal delivery, giving the alchemy a splendid twist, Goatlord himself sounding akin to both a hedonistic rage daemon, as well as a lamentable vampiric soul enchained in crypts deep below.

Goat Cunt is a pandemonious, violent blast of raw black speed punk, gravely evoking the aura of olds gods such as early Bathory and Discharge; as well as keeping in line with newer deities such as Bonehunter, Sweden’s Reaper and Burial Rites. The butcher’s steps clang down into the basement burial, isolated souls shivering in worship of concrete, mortal lives spent in sacrifice to an urban sprawl of perpetual self destruction.