Blasphemer – Lust Of The Goat – Album Review

Blasphemer‘s roots extend right back to the golden age age of death metal with the band originally forming in Dewsbury, England in 1990. While they released several highly acclaimed underground releases within the tape trading scene of the early 90’s, it wasn’t until 2014 that Blasphemer reformed with core members Arno Cagna, Mass Firth (and the addition of Dan Mullins on Drums and Dale Brown on Bass) and the seeds of their long-awaited self-titled debut were sown.

Blasphemer was a revelation and fortunately we haven’t had to wait the best part of 3 decades for a follow-up!

Their sophomore effort, Lust Of The Goat, picks up the heavy-as-fuck mantle laid down by their debut and ratchets everything up to the nth degree. Still malevolent, still thrashy, still decidedly devilish in its appropriation of the early 90’s death metal sound, Lust Of The Goat is simply a magnificent death metal record through and through.

Echoing the death/thrash collision masterminded by Death, Master, Malevelent Creation, Massacre etc without once coming across as forced or passé, Blasphemer’s latest release is shockingly effective in its barbaric directness.

Each track sounds like its been beamed into your ear-holes direct from 1990, all with a clarity and sense of genuine passion sadly lacking in much of today’s death metal. The song-writing is practically flawless – and pitched perfectly to register with those still enamoured with the likes of Death’s Leprosy, Master’s On The Seventh Day God Created…Master, Massacre’s From Beyond and Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness – and there’s nothing really to critique about an album that achieves its goals so vehemently.

Lust Of The Goat doesn’t attempt to ‘out-heavy’ or ‘out-tech’ today’s technical death metal / progressive death metal / deathcore elite, but it does perfectly encapsulate the sheer brilliance of an era which led to some of death metal’s greatest ever records! 9/10