Beast In The Field
Goat Isle Séance

What is the Beast in the Field? Is it a cow? A ravenous wolf, drawing the torches and pitchforks of an angry mob? Or is it the field itself – a craggy, lumbering juggernaut formed from the earth and rock, wrenching itself up from its slumber to rumble across the countryside? That’s the image that this 6-track EP of sludgy, instrumental stoner-doom evoked – not bad, considering that I am dead sober as I write this.

Hailing from Michigan, Beast in the Field consists of just one guitarist (Jordan Pries) and one drummer (Jamie Jahr), and these two are able to make quite a lot of noise between them. Goat Isle Séance, their debut release, features massive, feedback-drenched riffs and rhythms, delivered in two styles: full-on gallop, and slow, doomy crawl. The recording sounds appropriately ragged and bludgeoning, done old-skool analog in the studio (making best use of the vintage Sunn, Orange and Sound City amps and classic Ludwig drum kit, for those of you keeping score).

Okay, so that pretty much describes a lot of stoner doom, and yes, there’s a lot of Sleep to Beast‘s sound. So what’s new? For one thing, most of the songs, while long and epic, move briskly and frequently switch up tempos. Opener “Deep in the Caves” starts slow and bluesy, then abruptly roars with a fuzzy furnace blast as the titular Beast emerges from its long hibernation. When it reaches daylight, it goes barreling out into the open, creating a monstrous groove that turns trees into tinder and livestock into meatpuddles.

“Discovered: Large Iron Core” is another aptly titled burner – as heavy and powerful as a meteorite slamming into a peaceful green meadow, rolling and crushing everything in its path before coming to a stop. Eventually the Large Iron Core gets quiet, going lower and lower in a stoner-doom version of “Twist and Shout,” then explodes again with full force. Pretty rockin’ stuff.

That variance between heaving groove and smoky simmer makes for an entertaining listen that rarely slips into doomy shoegazing, so that it’s just as fit for a drive down the freeway as it is a night getting high(way). Only two tracks purposely slow it down – the pretty, classical-guitar-and-piano duet “Moth Amigo,” and “Breath of the…,” which is largely ambient and laborious to boot. I wasn’t a fan of the latter, seeing as it was the second track and really dragged things to a halt after the rollicking good times of “Caves,” but a quick finger on the skip button will fix all that if you get bored.

Overall, Goat Isle Séance is a solid listen, and given the massive wall-of-sound production and rumbling, ball-shattering riffs, a bit of contradiction. Simply put, music this heavy shouldn’t create a lulling effect, but that’s the power of a good smoky groove.

Roar.

[Visit the band's website]
Written by Jordan Itkowitz
August 6th, 2008

Comments

Leave a Reply

Privacy notice: When you submit a comment, your creditentials, message and IP address will be logged. A cookie will also be created on your browser with your chosen name and email, so that you do not need to type them again to post a new comment. All post and details will also go through an automatic spam check via Akismet's servers and need to be manually approved (so don't wonder about the delay). We purge our logs from your meta-data at frequent intervals.

  • Furze - Cosmic Stimulation of Dark Fantasies
  • Opus Irae - Into the Endless Night
  • Rotpit - Long Live the Rot
  • A La Carte - Born To Entertain
  • Mörk Gryning - Fasornas Tid
  • Yoth Iria - Blazing Inferno
  • Suidakra - Darkanakrad
  • Chaos Invocation - Wherever We Roam....
  • Ad Vitam Infernal - Le ballet des anges
  • Thy Catafalque - XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek (Twelve: The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet to Come)
  • Aara - Eiger
  • Mammoth Grinder - Undying Spectral Resonance EP
  • Wretched Fate - Incineration of the Pious EP
  • Kaivs - After the Flesh
  • Witnesses - Joy