Being a huge New Orleans Saints and LSU fan, I’m generally up for anything from Louisiana, especially musically where the likes of Crowbar, Soilent Green, and Goatwhore are concerned. There’s just something about that swampy, sweaty, moist riffage that appeals to me, so checking out the debut album from Lafayette’s Golgothan ( a literal ‘shit demon’) was a no brainer.
However, I was a bit disappointed this wasn’t the expected “Louisiana” swampy metal sound was hoping for. But on the flip side, what this is, is very impressive modern death metal from a band that has been around a while and honed their craft perfectly ( the band was known as Gutwrench from 20011-2014, and since has released a number of singles and EPs).
Mixing burly chunky European Death metal ( i.e Aborted, Blood Red Throne), a dash of Kataklysm’s steady stomps, and even some of Man Must Die‘s sneaky, melodic brutality, Golgothan delivers a full-on assault of no-frills, beefy death metal that does not fuck about or even try and sound remotely swampy or capture some of the typical geographic musical tropes ( though they do have a ‘Swamp Monster’ t-shirt…). And it slays. Hard.
The vocals have the dual, phlegmy approach that sounds like Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan, and when delivered with an absolutely devastating production from vocalist Jai Benoit, it comes together for a nasty slab of simple brutality – no keys, no interludes, (other than the sickly hacking of intro track “The Rack”). But amid the bludgeoning attack, there is enough variety to mix it up, like the steady lurch of “Bottomless Pit”, “The Overlord” ( which has the lone ‘swampy’ riff to close ou the album), and “Teeth to Eat You”, or more blackened start to “Winged One”. But for the most part, this is blistering, foul-tempered, bile spitting death metal fury as heard on “Leech”, “Parent Organsim'”, “Lard is My Shepard” and “Christian Mingle Killer”, but they do have some grooves, solos, and leads that inject enough melody here and there to be more than just a thunderous, non-stop beat down.
In all a very solid, punch you in your face, pummeling, death metal record, and what I needed in my current mire of symphonic atmospheric, melodic anime/ tech deathcore binge.
