by Anna Solomon (@chateau.fiasco)
Goat Girl was a bit ahead of the windmill scene curve in 2018, at least as far as gaining international recognition, releasing a solid and straight-ahead self-titled debut. Goat Girl now sounds less adventurous than the group has proven to be on subsequent releases, even as great as some of its songs are. Their third album Below the Waste is their first as a trio, but they’ve developed a sound that might take upwards of ten musicians to recreate, where folk textures and gorgeous harmonies are polluted by a sludge of dreary post-punk. It runs a hefty sixteen songs, only a small handful of which are interludes, and with this there’s variety and experimentation in spades.
Even as most songs only run about three minutes, they tend to branch off in unpredictable directions. While leadoff single “ride around” is a relatively conventional slacker rock track, relatively is doing a lot of work here. The dynamic switches in the verses are enforced by an unnervingly deep and chunky bass tone, which reappears throughout the album and forces the music to stay murky. The bridges contain a rickety stuttering feel in the guitar, and the outro builds into something surprisingly magnificent. “words fell out” and “play it down” are a bit more direct, with even more hooks and eclectic instrumentation, but not fully out of the muck.
Even as the synths are bright, as they often are, and even when the arrangements pop with folk instruments like banjos, as they often do, there’s a cynical brutalism all throughout. It’s especially heard on tracks like “where’s ur <3,” anchored by a tense, jilted crawl of a bass and drum groove. While this is certainly a vibe difficult to pull off consistently, especially with sixteen tracks all flowing into each other, the consistently memorable songwriting and instrumental diversity helps make it work, mostly justifying the run time. The textures can feel a bit grab bag, but they work more often than not.
Even occasional questionable arrangement choices are mostly redeemable songs on the whole. “motorway” opens unconvincingly with its cheap feeling synth horns, but it ends up as a great track nonetheless with a synth bass line, steady forward motion drum beat, and beautiful vocal harmonies on the hook. “tcnc” sounds dangerously close to NFL theme music, but the wild shouting across that track is one of the most exciting things on the album.
There are lighter moments too, none better than the piano-led ballad “take it away,” which has some of the best vocal harmonies on the project, and an evocative string arrangement. “pretty faces” is another softer track right after it, blending Americana fiddle and brush percussion with an otherwise more ambient texture. The band has settled back into the swamp by the back half of “perhaps,” which sheds its pastoral prog-tinged woodwinds for one of the darkest passages Goat Girl have ever done.
Below the Waste can feel like a double album, for all the good and bad that implies, even as it’s a bit shorter than their last one. While it feels ready to be done a few tracks before it’s over, it’s impossible to pick what should’ve been sacked with such a small handful of misfires. Goat Girl have settled into a less immediate formula than on their earlier work, but the result is their most creative and artistically distinct project in their catalogue.