For a band that proudly labels themselves as “Angelslaying Christbeheading Black Fucking Metal,” if you didn’t know what Archgoat are about by now, or just how profoundly blasphemous and genuinely evil they truly are – good news: they’ve returned with a new full length entitled The Apocalyptic Triumphator to kick off the new year. Armed with plenty of hammers, nails and stakes, Archgoat pulverize all purity through two sections that make up the album, each beginning with “Left Hand Path” and “Right Hand Path” intros, respectively. Featuring all sorts of the eerie, fucked up sounds you’d expect – organs, demonic voices, cold winds, religious chanting, the squealing of swine and the thuds of said swine being clubbed – it’s made pretty clear that something rather ominous is on the horizon. The music that follows breaks bones and crushes the Holy Spirit itself. With Death Metal battery and vocal punch, “Nuns, Cunts, and Darkness” opens with fury, before the band breaks for a slower, darkened groove that is made all the more atmospheric by the chiming of apocalyptic bells and chants that accentuate the complete and total darkness Archgoat wants to portray. Complete with a brief, but ripping, solo, the newest effort is kicked off in grandiose, brutal fashion.
The following two tracks spare none. Having virtually no segway between them, and giving no fucks, Archgoat repeatedly beat and batter the listeners’ eardrums into dust before opening with more tempered, atmospheric (yet nonetheless heavy and evil-as-all-fuck) chords on “Grand Luciferian Theophany,” that eventually are joined by particularly pronounced vocals belching forth the words: “HAIL SATAN! HAIL LUCIFER! HAIL SATAN!” There’s really nothing to say here: it’s the kind of bludgeoningly brutal evil only Archgoat can conjure. Yet, the second half of this album seems particularly pissed off. “Congregation of the Circumcised” is incredibly bruising and flies by in a flash, leaving the ashes of angels in its wake as it catapults the album forward into a next level phase of barbarity in “Sado-Magical Portal,” which offers more unrelenting brutality and impressive lead work, before “Light of Phosphorus” upturns ears with incredibly catchy, yet sinister riffing that spirals outwards, before descending to the depths of hell. By the time you reach “Funeral Pyre of Trinity,” your ass is, well, toast. This song blasts forth from the get-go with hammering percussion and overbearing vocals, before breaking and stripping down to its most barren parts: drums and demonic vocalizations. These eventually give way as the riffing comes back into play and atmospheric keys beckon, signaling the end of what has been a soul-scarring experience that has one single message: It is Satan that is our lord and master. Whether your path is Left or Right, both wind below. Archgoat reigns supreme once again. Buy or die.
