After the mystical folk wanderings of their previous album, 2023's
Medicine
, the ever-mysterious
Goat
are back to peeling paint off the walls with their rollicking, blown-out take on psychedelic biker rock. Much like they did on 2022's
Oh Death
, the band rely heavily on grungy, serrated guitars that jump out of the speakers like snakes looking for a soft place to bite, while at the same time indulging as usual in all sorts of shamanistic sounds ranging from flutes and shakers to hammered piano chords. Add in the lung-busting vocals and dramatic arrangements that are filled with dynamic tension, and it's another
album to treasure. Perhaps it's a little more meandering than
, but still exciting and full of visceral thrills on songs like "Dollar Bill," which has some seriously nasty caked-on funk in the grooves and guitar work that would make
Neil Young
blanch, or the live-wire Afro-punk dance track "Frisco Beaver." They even slip in a somewhat game-changing twist when nobody was really expecting there to be one. Two tracks are inspired by the group's heretofore untapped love of hip-hop. "Zombie" is built on a rolling drum sample and doomy piano chords straight off a West Coast rap song circa 1992, then made extra weird thanks to some very gnarly guitar noise and dubby drum breaks. The album-ending "Ouroboros" takes a different approach; built on an uptempo drum loop and blasting out of the speakers on waves of fuzz bass and tightly funky guitars, the song sounds like the soundtrack to a classic cop-show chase scene. Think
the Go! Team
but not cute or the
Beastie Boys
but not annoying -- or
Lalo Schifrin
in a psychedelic reverie -- and that's just about right. It stretches out for over seven minutes, yet never gets boring thanks to the atmospheric shifts that see echoing saxes added, cascading spoken-word samples run through the mix like nightmares, and the usual guitar overload applied for good measure. It's a bracing end to the album and points to a promising direction the band could take in the future. Or it could just be a one-off and that would be fine since, as the rest of this excellent record proves without a doubt, there's more than enough gas left in
's tank to keep them riding in style for years to come. ~ Tim Sendra