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Goat Girl

The eponymous debut album by the London-based four-piece band Goat Girl was released in 2018. I have it on CD. Goat Girl are among the many artists I first encountered via BBC Radio 6 Music. As I recall, the album was a little while in the making owing to some mishaps and setbacks that beset the band at the time.

The album packs in nineteen short tracks in a running time of about forty-two minutes. Musically, it imparts what I perceive as a downward force: its de-tuned sound (if that's the right term - it may be just a particular choice of tunings & chords) has a depressive quality to my ears, that I need to be in a certain mood to appreciate, with tracks like 'Slowly Reclines', 'Lay Down' and 'Throw Me a Bone' all exemplifying that kind of feeling.

Other songs are catchy, uptempo numbers which nevertheless aren't altogether uplifting: the singles 'Cracker Drool' and 'The Man' in particular. It's an impressive album that, when I'm up for it, I still enjoy playing. What I've heard of their follow-up record On All Fours hasn't appealed to me as much, but it could be I just need to give it more time to grow on me.

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