Norwegian trio Goatkraft announced their presence to the world last year. The demo tape they released suggested the band were competent if unspectacular. The release of this Angel Slaughter EP definitely elevates the band to the next level.

The bass-heavy production keeps the music grounded in a doomy milieu which suits the music perfectly. Bassist A. stands out in almost every track, providing a clanking, belching backbone for the primitive guitars of O. to work against. This approach bears especial fruit on the band’s eponymous anthem Goatkraft.

If you are struggling to picture what this music sounds like, the fact that Goatkraft provide a faithful cover of Black Witchery’s Unholy Vengeance of War may help. This is barbaric black metal in excelsis.

As the black metal scene finds itself ever-more saturated with pretenders and painful, gauche imitators it is perhaps refreshing to stumble across music such as Goatkraft’s. Bereft of guile or notions of post-modernity, this band simply wishes to recreate simpler times when unadorned brutality such as Holocaust Winds of Blasphemy was more the rule than the exception.

For twenty minutes at least the listener joins them in that far-off world.

Angel Slaughter is out now on Iron Bonehead.