There are few bands in extreme metal as stubbornly devoted to their own path as ARCHGOAT. Trends come and go, production gets cleaner, genres split into increasingly obscure subgenres—but the Finnish veterans continue marching through the darkness with all the subtlety of a battering ram wrapped in barbed wire.
Five years after Worship The Eternal Darkness and four years after the All Christianity Ends EP, ARCHGOAT have announced their sixth full-length album, Nightbringer, Lightbringer, due out on September 11.
For anyone hoping the band might have mellowed with age, the tracklist alone should put those concerns to rest. Titles such as “Blood Of Jesus Spilling Upon The Earth,” “Reaper Of Christianity,” and “Keys Of Hell And Of Death” suggest that ARCHGOAT remain as diplomatically minded as ever.
The new record promises another dose of the band’s signature formula: primitive Black/Death Metal, first-wave black metal filth, punk aggression, thrash violence, and grindcore chaos fused into a ritualistic assault that somehow sounds both ancient and timeless. It’s a sound ARCHGOAT have spent decades refining, and at this point they belong to that rare category of bands that are instantly recognizable within seconds.
To mark the announcement, ARCHGOAT have unveiled the title track, “Nightbringer, Lightbringer,” as the first single from the album. Accompanied by a video created by Alex Moréan of AVERSIO HUMANITATIS, the track delivers exactly what longtime followers would expect: massive riffs, cavernous atmosphere, and enough blasphemous energy to make a medieval bishop spontaneously combust.