Distorted Birth: The Demos

Goatlord began with a certain agenda back in the mid 80s. They wouldn't put out a demo until '87 and then cement themselves with more of a molded musical approach on their next demo. This collection pieces together demos '87, '88 and a promo from '91. And it's safe to say that they started with an obscure but perverse viewpoint on extreme metal.

Like this whole collection, the '87 demo has beyond a harsh sound quality, and also some hints from the time period with some thrashy moments. This also has a sludgy-doom tone with black lyrics and a soaking of death metal to top it off. Distortion seems to be added to Ace Still's raw/raspy voice and punishes the microphone, as deeply tuned guitars fuzz up your speakers, and surprisingly the drums come through with a clearer-than-the-rest audibility. With all honesty, the demo from '88 and the promo are the best thing here for repeat listens. The music on the '87 demo is unrefined at that point and understandably added here for diehard fans. The songs here are delivered much better on the next demo.

It makes sense to put the '88 demo, 'Sodomize the Goat,' on disc one and then the '87 demo second to this, because overall this demo, even though still lo-fi, delivers a darker and well put together sound for the band. Ace's vocals would resemble how they sound on the debut album and the overall music slowed things down from their more frequent faster sections on the last. This brings us to Goatlord's area, a sort of black-death-doom with raspy vocals with tons of effects pulling them out of perceived reality and into a warped, hellish dimension that Goatlord seemed to have authentically created here. The music mostly creeps up on you, with the guitars and bass drowning the background into a bassy trailing. He'll use slowly strummed chords and massive snail-like palm mutes with the drums matching his hits and adding slow-motion fills on the cymbals and toms. The 'Sodomize the Goat' demo does have mid-paced beats as well, along with the production it resembles the gradual acceleration of a massive locomotive, with you standing directly in its path and too paralyzed with fear to move. This is still worth it to own because on the debut Goatlord used an obvious electronic drum set, yet with a louder and more developed sound quality, but on the other hand can take some time to get used to because it's pretty prominent in the mix. Yet here, we have an actual physical drum set behind these tracks, but on the other hand with the lo-fi sound quality of a demo.

This last portion has two tracks from a promo in '91, which would get them signed to Turbo and have their debut released. It also contains a grainier sound quality, but the music is still well put together and worth it to check out the alternates that would also appear on the debut. This is where they would begin to initially use the electronic drum set. Although, most of the instruments block it out from being noticeable except for the toms making their 'clicking' unwelcoming. Yet, the snare drum has a harsher sound and isn't as obvious.

'Distorted Birth: The Demos' collects the early history of a band that would mark their grounds with a different approach than some other groups. Most people I would imagine would like their heart to constantly be jerked and blood to flow at an accelerated rate from their extreme metal material. Goatlord slows things down on their demos, but still delivers an atmosphere that is hard to rival even with the lacking sound quality here. With this collection Goatlord's evolution shows, coming out with the best material being 'Sodomize the Goat' and the promo from '91. And the '87 demo being a trial run of what was to come from the band. What's impressive is that the amount of music put on their '88 demo is 12 tracks and clocked at over an hour, considering most demos are 3 to 5 tracks and only typically deliver enough to get a glimpse of the band. I would definitely recommend this to someone who doesn't mind harsher production and has an appetite for some atmospheric blackened death and doom.