Whether they’re parlaying their carefully cultivated mystique into pop stardom, or just outed by the press, camera-shy buzz acts generally don’t stay anonymous for long. But the masked members of GOAT have now made it to their third album without breaking character or being doxxed, which is no small achievement for a self-mythologizing entity in the age of oversharing. And even if they’re the only ones still recounting their incredulous origin story with a straight face (or a mask depicting a straight face), GOAT are still clinging the conceit, and to this day, interviews with the band put journalists in the awkward position of picking up the phone and asking to speak with somebody named Fuzzmaster.
And yet in GOAT’s case, the ridiculous high-concept package ultimately reinforces the sincerity with which they approach their pan-cultural psych-funk fusion. Unlike fellow Swedes Ghost—whose campy black-mass theatrics seem like an awful lot of effort for what’s essentially melodic ’80s pop-metal—there’s very little ironic distance between GOAT’s image and execution. For them, costumery is not a means of drawing attention to themselves but deflecting it back onto their collectivist music. If GOAT aren’t actually a small-town sect reinterpreting the ritualistic sounds of the ancients (and are really just crate-diggers with robust internet connections and unlimited budgets for Afrobeat imports), what’s important is that they genuinely resemble one.
On Requiem, that narrative becomes further entrenched, as GOAT lure us deeper into the woods for a communion ceremony under moonlight. This is their Zeppelin III move, a psychedelia rendered primarily with acoustic elements, pastoral brushes, and field-recording ambience. But even in stripped-down mode, GOAT are unrepentant maximalists, and the full weight of the ensemble is always felt. They’ve dialed down the volume, but not the frantic exuberance. On the joyous Afropop of “Trouble In the Streets” and the mandolin-powered raga “Try My Robe,” the band’s female mouthpiece blares as loudly as she did on past acid-rock ragers, while the chirpy flute-folk of “Union of Sun and Moon” and “I Sing in Silence” do little to temper the band’s innate sense of groove.
But while there’s a greater emphasis here on compact songcraft (“Alarms” could be a brown-acid Mamas and the Papas), GOAT are still at their most transfixing when they engage in rhythmic hypnotherapy. Requiem is a double album, granting the band the real estate to stretch out more than usual and, at times, you wish they’d go even further: the thundering “Temple Rhythms” teases the connection between campfire drum circles and piano-house raves, though it fades out before the band can properly build upon its vibrating foundation. However, with the self-referential “Goatband” and “Goatfuzz,” Requiem erects its towering tentpole tracks: The former is a mesmerizing jangle jam where GOAT’s wah-wahed shredding dissolves into a textural haze; the latter is a rare moment of amped-up aggression whose electric-boogie breaks imagine Grand Funk Railroad riffing on "Yoo Doo Right."
Despite their mosaic of international influences, GOAT are, at heart, a classic-rock band in pagan clothing. Even at their busiest, the group rarely veer toward confrontational chaos, and despite their sinister appearance, their lyrics are incense-scented, hippy-dippy platitudes (at times excessively so—this band has no compunction about giving its ballads names like “Psychedelic Lover”). But if you’re wondering how long GOAT can keep up the cult-rock gambit, well, there’s evidence here to suggest GOAT are pondering that very question, too.
Requiem’s penultimate track is an instrumental titled “Goodbye,” which could very well just signal the album’s end, however, the sense of finality is compounded by the fact the song sounds like the Doors’ “The End” given an Indo-funk remix. It’s followed by the closing curio “Ubuntu,” which reveals that GOAT haven’t just copped their sense of rhythm from African funk records, but their way of life as well. Atop free-form organ doodles, we hear recordings of men and women from the continent explaining the titular philosophy of connectedness and sharing, their sanguine sentiments (“I’m not human without your being present”) folded into GOAT’s own communal ethos through a distant flashback of “Diarabi,” the first song on the band’s first album, World Music. It’s the sort of full-circle move that suggests the closing of a chapter—but even if GOAT’s faces remain a mystery, with Requiem, they’ve at least showed us a bit more of their heart.
