Death Before Dishonour

For those of us who’ve heard Goatmoon’s later works first, ‘Death Before Dishonour’ is likely to take us by surprise. Far from the polished, quirky and punky style Jaako is now famous for crafting, the debut LP showcases some of the rawest and most primitive black metal that Finland has ever released. For those of you reading this that follow black metal religiously, you’ll know this is no easy task: to come up against the fury of Satanic Warmaster; the aggression of Clandestine Blaze; with the sheer venom of Behexen and emerge victorious is a notable feat. That said, it is only on the production values that Goatmoon are consistently ‘better’ than their contemporaries; compositionally, a few of the ideas here fall short, though the overall outcome is pleasing.

The album takes a somewhat traditional approach to the Finnish black metal sound. Perhaps drawing a little too much influence from Satanic Warmaster, the sound throughout is comprised of two furious, dirty guitars that blaze forth aggressive and hateful notes; a thick bass that lies beneath, following the guitars for the most part; a drumkit, recorded on a single microphone, tinny and noisey, yet refreshingly varied and fitting. Somewhere in the middle of this mesh of instrumentation lie BlackGoat’s vocals: a violent rasp, well-annunciated, that shrieks through a distortion microphone throughout.

Compositionally, the majority of the tracks are pleasing enough. Songs such as “Blackmetal Winter”, “In the Cursing Embrace”, “Rite of God Deny” and “Kunnia, Armageddon!” all employ a punk-like style of riffing and progression, with basic bass/snare variations blaring from the drums beneath. To contrast the simplistic nature of these tracks, Jaako utilises a more dissonant sound on other songs. The tracks “Pure Blood”, “Forest of Misanthropy”, “Humanhate grows Strong Within” and the title track all make use of frequent changes between major and minor intervals, created an emotionally flowing and easily-listenable sound. The drums tend to switch from blasts to bass/snare beats, though there are plenty of fills and interesting beats that are thrown in. However, the album’s downfall lies within the remainder of the tracks; “Bloodvengeance”, “Light Will not be”, “Blackgoatworship”, “Aryan Evil” and “Disease” are all somewhat experimental, and don’t always pay off. To begin with, the tracks “Bloodvengeance”, “Blackgoatworship” and “Aryan Evil” are blatant abominations, being nothing more than stomach-churningly simplistic riffing over obnoxiously overused blast beats. There’s really nothing enjoyable here at all. The other two tracks, “Light Will not be” and “Disease” do have their redeeming features: the former with a pleasant clean introduction and generally depressive structure, the latter with a morose and imposing atmosphere held throughout its duration. The saddening thing about these two tracks is that they progress nowhere – they’re held within the confines of a single key, never flourishing into what they could have been.

Overall, though, this is a somewhat pleasing listen. Although by no means as spectacular as the second or third albums, it’s still worth a listen, even if it’s only once.