04-02-2017 Year Of The Goat

[schema type=”event” evtype=”MusicEvent” name=”04-02-2017 Year Of The Goat” description=”Support: The Order of Israfel” street=”MTS” city=”Oldenburg” country=”DE” ]

By: Basak Günel

It’s not always that I get to see some amazing doom metal / occult rock bands live in Oldenburg! So when I saw the news of Swedish bands Year of the Goat and The Order of Israfel playing live in my city, I was beyond excited! Oldenburg does not have many concert venues but MTS is especially a nice one; it’s normally a record/LP store but it can also be booked as venue. The store itself is not so big which makes the whole atmosphere a bit more familiar and sincere.

After a little bit of waiting, The Order of Israfel started their set. Formed in 2012, the doom metallers have released two albums so far so the band is relatively young but definitely pros! I have to say that it took some time for the audience to get used to the band’s style. All in all, we are talking about a doom metal band so fast songs were not really expected. The band did try to cheer up the audience with jokes and it seemed to work! With each song, the audience got warmed up and cheered up. Although the band’s style is doom metal, they also have some influences from heavy metal and a bit of an occult here and there so while some songs were doom-y, other songs were quite fast… which were preferred by the audience more! At the end of their show, the audience called the band to the stage one more time (“we want more”) and the band didn’t disappoint the venue!

Year Of The Goat next… To be honest, I have heard the name of this band so much but I have never really gotten around to listening to them. The band has been around for a while and they are indeed one of the known names in the genre of occult rock and doom metal. When the band first started the set, I thought that they were doing some kind of soundcheck but it turned out that they started the set already… so this was a surprise for the audience! However, the band’s dynamic start to the show definitely caught the attention of the audience from the beginning. 

As a new fan of the band, the first thing that got me into them was their amazing sound! The band’s style is a mixture of the occult/doom sound with the 60s and the 70s which could also be seen from the audience. From young to the old fans, the band managed to captivate the audience with the clean but enchanting vocals and that rock’n’roll sound! Furthermore, the keyboardist Pope’s nice attitude, jokes and his German was definitely a bonus!

Throughout the show, the band played songs from their albums. My favorites were “Spirits of Fire”, “Pillars of the South”, “Vermillion Clouds” and “Riders of Vultures” although I gotta say that I enjoyed the whole setlist, which doesn’t always happen.It was especially great to headbang in the ‘last’ song “Riders of Vultures”. After this song, the band left the stage only to come back again (Pope’s words: if you ask, we will come.. only once). The band played “Song of Winter” and “Vermin” and left everyone with smiles on their faces and sweaty! A huge success for the band as well as for the audience! Thanks to both of the bands for an amazing night and amazing music!

Links:
Year of the Goat Facebook
The Order of Israfel Facebook