Band:	Goats Of Doom
Album:	Shiva
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	May 2021

01. ἀπōκάλυψις
02. Uljas Uusi Maailma
03. Luomiskertomus
04. Armon Varjot
05. Korjuu
06. Rotat
07. Shiva

Moonsor-raw in Gothenburg.

Okay, there's both more and less to it than that, but imagine marking Ville Sorvali's screams, chants, and the folkier aspects of Moonsorrow's music with your cursor, clicking Ctrl+C (we are not cutting anything out of that great band, nor are we using a Mac), and pasting it into a core of Gothenburg death leads and blackened folk riffs carried by a crisp, raw production, and you have a general idea of how Shiva sounds.

Upon first listen, Goats Of Doom already on the opener kept throwing curveballs at me. The first minutes are catchy, melodic black metal with no frills. Then, strained, shamanistic cleans break through before the song settles into a blackened groove again. It is topped off by an outro of acoustic plucking and trebly minor key folk strings straight out of a Moonsorrow interlude. I was confused. Where would Shiva go next? Would it end up a train crash or a joyride of these contrasting influences?

I am happy to report it is quite a joyride, but through a terrain flat as the fields of Ostrogothia where I sit and write. Each following track focus on different parts of the microcosm of themes introduced in the aptly titled opener (Revelation), making the album eventually show a character of its own as we follow a story about a world being consumed by flames for a better one to rise from the ashes.

In the metal aspect, the bass and drums are so solid I barely notice they are there, in a mostly good way (the bass could've used more presence in the mix, and I like my percussion more varied, thank you). In the verses of "Uljas Uusi Maailma" (Brave New World), a stellar sequencing of sibilants turn the vocals into a percussion instrument of its own, displaying why metal sounds simply better in Finnish before topping it off by an anthemic outro. Midway through "Rotat" (Rats), the guitars break out into a bridge like a maelstrom pulling me into a mental moshpit, and on the title track, some deft 9/8-time trickery mixes up the lead patterns just enough to keep it interesting until the end (of the beginning, as it were).

In the folk aspect, Goats Of Doom make use of oddball Sami harmonics in the clean chorus of "Luomiskertomus" (Tale Of Creation), where the band's influences come together at their best, before leading the album into the unapologetically melodic centrepiece "Armon Varjot" (Shades Of Mercy). Nothing on Shiva is particularly original, but every song is memorable, however blending together in a way that leaves the album both without particular highlights or pitfalls, which is a pitfall in itself.

Though obviously intended to be digested as a whole, after a dozen listens, I am by now cherry picking songs from it to suit my current mood. You couldn't go wrong with listening to any of the tracks, but in its entirety, Shiva's bag of tricks eventually turn out to be a one-trick bag. A pretty tasty bag of tricks though, mind you, provided you enjoy the flavour.