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Band: The Devil & The Universe
Album title: GOATopia
Release date: 28 January 2022
Label: Solar Lodge Production
Genre: Goat-Wave, Electronic, Darkwave
Tracklist:
01. Utopia Incognita
02. Eschaton
03. Spleen Cockaigne
04. Viva! Goatopia
05. Amaurotum Sunset
06. News From Nowhere
07. The Great God Pan Is Dead (Long Live The Great God Pan)
08. Echotopia
09. Psychogeography
Utopia is no more, a new thing is Goatopia! The sixth full-length by the Austrian unconventional trio The Devil & The Universe is about a new reality. Born out of magic and occultism, spiced up with utopian visions and humour, this nine tracker is a perfect goat breeding soundtrack for the confusing world of today. From one reality into another, GOATopia is some kind of a cynical mirror image of a future past. It can stir up imagination while the tribalistic audio psychedelia plays with magic and religious mechanisms that form musical rules for The Devil & The Universe.
Conceptually, the album got inspired by Thomas More's novel Utopia. The Devil & The Universe, with Ashley Dayour (Whispers In The Shadow, ex-Near Earth Orbit) to head the band, took this idea further and created their imaginary world to face dystopian predictions ironically. Musically GOATopia differs from the past albums and EPs of this formation. At its core, it has elements of each one of them, though not so experimental and mystical like in their beginnings, and it doesn't reach the heights of their 2015 masterpiece Benedicere, but on the other side, it has other qualities. Nevertheless, there's a lot of gloomy twisted psychedelia, like on the previous album :Endgame 69:, yet they add new elements, which makes GOATopia an original work of the so-called by them invented genre - goat wave.
Sinister, bleak, cinematic and at the same time dynamic, yet occasionally immersive, GOATopia is an electrifying work of devilish art. Strong pounding beats invoke weird captivating melodies and electronically entranced sounds replenish the atmosphere. Ghastly, but often rhythmical, almost danceable, with techno elements, industrial, darkwave, synth-pop, dark ambient, and neo-psychedelia, are well connected into a mass of sounds that flow smoothly. The Devil & The Universe also on GOATopia use ritual, tribalistic and oriental elements, like heard in the track "Spleen Cockaigne". Vocals are not used as a primal thing, despite that are utilized more than on previous releases. Songs like are the opener "Utopia Incognita", then the hallucinating electronic drill "Viva! Goatopia", or the humourous "The Great God Pan Is Dead (Long Live The Great God Pan)", are even more special thanks to this matter.
Esoteric yet perverse in an ironic way, "The Great God Pan Is Dead (Long Live The Great God Pan)" is the most rhythmic, hallucinating and danceable track up here, and I guess that besides "Viva! Goatopia", the focal point of the album, or at least at the beginning of your journey with this album. After several spins, you'll discover more interesting things that unveil like some kind of magic. The things get dark and haunting with the dark ambient kind of hypnotic electronics and beats in "Echotopia", and enhance further with the somewhat melancholic horror ambient soundtrack called "Psychogeography".
Wicked, twisted and hypnotic are the words that best describe the music on GOATopia. The Devil & The Universe walk a thin line of not falling too much into self-parody, and they should be careful regarding this in the future. The songs range from simplistic minimal waves, "Amaurotum Sunset", to very complex trippy structures with a lot of depth, "News From Nowhere". The album offers a lot of intriguing and original music, yet is one of the most accessible albums of this act. The Devil & The Universe create utopias, destroy them and rebuild them again.
The review was written by Tomaz
Rating: 8/10
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