Yeah, when you like it the filthy way, Goatblood will surely please your nastiest desires. This choir was formed ten years ago by D. Janssen aka Satanic Death Vulva (also active in e.g. Blasphemous Putrefaction, Genocide or Nacht) and Reverend Slayer (of Morannon fame). After some demonstrational stuff, they came up with some (great) split 7”EP’s, for example with the likes of Nuclear Perversions (2015; evidently via Iron Bonehead Productions) or Nihil Domination from Ecuador. However, it is their 2015-album Adoration Of Blasphemy And War, I think, that did put their name on the worldwide map of disgusting, rancid and mucus-like sonic devastation. It was also their debut for Germany’s finest Dunkelheit Produktionen. Their follow-up Veneration Of Armageddon surely continued / or strengthened / their quest for life extinction and sadistic humiliation of the human kind.
Somehow, this project stayed related to the label, and a next result of this partnership is Apparition Of Doomsday: Fourteen pisses, sorry, pieces (no ‘peace’s!) of disgust, puke and semen, sweetly presented on compact disc (jewel-case with eight-page booklet), vinyl (three different color-versions, with A2-sized poster) or digitally, are gathered as Apparition Of Doomsday, initially written as from 2016, and eventually recorded around that time by this sweet duo (in the mean-time, they recruited a third member, by the way), and then mixed and mastered by Babylon Asleep’s Mario Dahmen (known for his assistance with bands like Magoth, Ordo Caper, Blasphemous Putrefaction or Grimoire De Occulte) in between Summer 2018 and late Winter 2019 (Liquid Aether Audio studio).
From sonic point of view, not that much changed, compared to the past. But there is one thing that does strike me: the average length of the elegies. In comparison to the former efforts, the singalongs on Apparition Of Doomsday are significantly longer. Okay, 2018’s EP Arma Inferre showed a first glimpse of this evolution, but still it is a remarkable thing to notice that the average length of this third full length clocks more than three minutes (fourteen tracks, forty-six minutes of duration; before, it was more or less around two minutes per song). But this is nothing to be afraid of, for it does not – and I repeat: NOT – mean that the band went more mainstream. …at all…
Apparition Of Doomsday does show its ugliness as from the intro Exodus, and soon the bestial, putrid and contemptuous mixture of sordid Morbid Death, blood-soaked Doom and vile Black-Grind sickens the listener’s brain. This goes back to the oldest school, when / where combos in the vein of Archgoat, Beherit, Autopsy, Conqueror or Blasphemy reigned the underworlds. The gurgling grunts, including a certain echoing aspect, are beastly and acid-puking, sluicing venom, spitting pus and breathing fester. These throats are hellbent, demented, lunatic; a representation of the Horned One’s vocal cords when cumming, I guess. These vivacious chants get supported by a monumental string section. The wall of sound created by bass and four-string guitar-work is thick as impenetrable broom, and the few fiery solos are like lightning flashes that are mercilessly penetrating, or is it raping, that suffocative fog. All this gets molested by thunderous drum salvos and sadistic drum patterns, hammering and beating like rapid beasts from the Netherworlds. Yet somehow, the percussion has that something precise, that well-thought touch of elegance (damn, did I just use the word ‘elegance’ in this review?). And another excellent aspect is the modest use of samples, like church bells, fragments from unknown sources (the devastating power of the four elements in both intro and outro, for instance), Folk Music from many decades ago, etc.
That in a nutshell…
Worth mentioning too is the huge variation in tempo. The former efforts did contain some slower passages, yet the overall speed was of the unstoppable and grinding fast kind. Well, most of this album too explodes, over and over again, like some pyroclastic eruption, or a torrid comet unfriendly caressing some blue planet, leaving it in uncountable pieces of vitriolic dust and wretched fragments. But there are little more decelerations, slower fragments that reveal an impending doom, or that concretize an apocalyptic view on earthly life.
for fans of everything in between Impiety, Archgoat, Blasphemy, Revenge, Goatlord, Autopsy, Teitanblood, Beherit, Repulsion, Profanatica and so on (I guess you got the picture).
PS: the cool cover artwork, by the way, by created once again by Peru-born visual artis Alan Corpse (also known from his work for acts like Bestial Possession, Pervertor, Executed, Anal Vomit or Mystifier, amongst many others).
https://dunkelheitprod.bandcamp.com/album/apparition-of-doomsday