Year of the Goat returns to haunt us.
With this new album, titled Trivia Goddess, Thomas Lucem Ferre Sabbathi Eriksson (vocals/guitar), Mikael Mihailo Popovic (vocals/keyboards/guitar), Jonas Erik Waldhuber Mattsson (guitar/backing vocals), David Hakan Andreas Olofsson (guitar), Daniel Melo Ortega (drums), Marko Kardum (bass), and Elin Gardfalk (backing vocals) continue their collaboration with Napalm Records.
Unfamiliar with the band’s universe, but only listening to my curiosity, I begin with The Power of Eve, a fairly soft and almost cheerful first composition that becomes more mysterious when the vocals come in. The track regains its energy on the choruses accompanied by intriguing keyboards, and if the track seems to run out of steam, it picks up again with the solo and then the eponymous Trivia Goddess, where it’s easy to get caught up in the dance. A fairly heavy groove is at work on this track, where the backing vocals become more insistent, particularly Elin’s ones, which perfectly answers the male vocals, but it is in an almost ritualistic atmosphere that the track leads us to Kiss of a Serpent, an even more occult and intriguing track. The vocal parts are also different, contributing to the heavy atmosphere, but the keyboards ultimately brighten up the rhythm to better join Mét Agwe in a palpable melancholy, displaying heavy stoner influences before calming down. The composition is quite long, clearly displaying its differences as it progresses, moving from a gloomy touch to more joyful moments with 70s accents before giving way to The Queen of Zemargad, which once again draws on the mysterious tones of warm but still groovy Hard Rock. The track is fairly short, and the final acceleration leads us to the hazy Alucarda, which first takes advantage of a few dissonant elements before giving its rhythm some truly catchy moments during the choruses, while The King of Damnation chooses a much heavier and more suffocating doom-like approach to tell its story. The more soothing roots are never too far away, however, allowing the keyboards to slip into the choruses, and I thought the track would end with the break, but the band flares up again before handing over to Crescent Moon, which hypnotizes us with its harmonics. The track remains very accessible and catchy, almost syrupy at the end, before letting The Witch of the Woods offer more progressive and elaborate patterns, particularly on the lead guitar, taking advantage of almost ritualistic passages where the vocalist lets herself be possessed to guide us towards the end of the album.
Although far removed from my preferred styles, Trivia Goddess won me over with ease. Year of the Goat uses intoxicating Old School tones to achieve its goals, and the least we can say is that the band knows what it’s talking about when it comes to ethereal 70s-style sounds!
75/100