During their decade-plus long disappearance, the supergroup status of the doom band Goatsnake grew. When the quartet released their last album, 2000’s Flower of Disease, the new project of guitarist Greg Anderson, an amplifier-worship duo he called Sunn O))), had issued its debut LP only months earlier. Scream—the childhood hardcore Virginia crew and talent crucible of Goatsnake singer Pete Stahl—had yet to reunite. And neither had the Obsessed, the atavistic doom squad of drummer Greg Rogers. But in recent years, the rise or reactivation of those respective projects and a wave of young acts exploring a Goatsnake-like mix of Southern rock heroics and distortion-heavy harangues have retroactively elevated the band to a near-mythical position. In the first life, Goatsnake existed for less than five years and issued two good albums; in the afterlife and now the resurrection, they have fostered a legacy much more significant than the original output ever portended.
After occasional concerts during the last five years, Goatsnake returned to the studio last summer to stage a proper comeback. The resulting nine-song set, Black Age Blues, affirms their long-standing love of metal force and classic-rock verve without pushing the mix to many new extremes. Though they swapped bassist Scott Reeder for Sourvein player Scott Renner (what are the chances?), Goatsnake staged the album as a literal continuation of Flower of Disease. That LP ended with a song called "The River", which closed with an eerie, extended strings-and-sirens dénouement. So this record opens with "Another River to Cross", which begins by sampling that old ellipsis before the band slams down with four-piece force. They sound excellent and energized, Anderson’s riff racing through switchbacks beneath Stahl’s arching, almost-gleeful reflections on mortality. The next 40 minutes wind through mid-tempo rumbles and howling harmonica solos, blustery riffs and muscular drum fills, Zeppelin references and "C.C. Rider" nods, songs about existential crises and songs about earthly delights. With hazy hooks powered by a mighty band, Black Age Blues is, as advertised, very much the third Goatsnake album.
But Black Age Blues is strongest when it suggests that the members and their musical relationships have evolved during Goatsnake’s recess, especially when the past presents new stylistic tension. For his part, Stahl is more confident and convincing as a Southern soul-loving leader. He commands a small background choir—"Dem Preachers’ Daughters," they call themselves—throughout the record, sometimes letting them lift his leads and sometimes dueling with their harmonies. He stutters syllables like an unabashed Robert Plant acolyte and stretches his words skywards like a gospel singer bound for glory. These traits thrill when they clash with Anderson’s own development as an ultra-low-and-slow guitarist. "House of the Moon", for instance, opens with a rich tone and ominous lurch that suggest Sunn O))). Even as the choir joins Stahl to exclaim things like "Shine on" during the chorus, Anderson burrows deeper, his menacing variations providing a sinister foil to the ascendant soul vocals. And near the end of the great "Coffee & Whiskey", Anderson and Stahl wrestle on tape. The singer squeals and exhorts like he’s moonlighting with the Faces. The guitarist, meanwhile, strangles a dense theme into submission, refusing to join the joy ride. That disparity was always a key to Goatsnake, but as the interests of its members have grown, such frisson has become as vital to the sound as the songs themselves.
Through little fault of Goatsnake’s own, listening to Black Age Blues can sometimes feel like watching wizened blues musicians play the music of their now-distant youth. The style is familiar enough to be comforting, but it’s also inherently trite and redundant. You’ve already heard the permutations that have followed. Since Goatsnake released Flower of Disease, there’s been a renaissance of provocative doom, particularly from bands doubly influenced by psychedelic and Southern rock. It’s impossible not to think about how Weedeater might distort and destroy the chemical surge of "Coffee & Whiskey" or to what new lysergic limits Kylesa could push closer "A Killing Blues". Goatsnake add some tricks and twists for Black Age Blues, but as if in deference to the supergroup side-project’s nature, they don’t aim to reinvent themselves or their sound. Instead, they simply have fun playing with the past and delivering at least a few new anthems in the process. At least that’s better than plenty of their reunited peers cashing in on the festival circuit even attempt, let alone accomplish.
