Pastoral pleasures include quaint life activities like chewing on wheat straw, planning the tractor route, taking count of your animal inhabitants, and… well, shoot I don’t know, ask Cherd. Or ask Milking the Goatmachine, whose agrarian ideals include fat riffs, skanky drum beats, and squealing breakdowns. In their efforts to till German soils with groovy death metal and grindcore, this studio duo (and performative quartet) have managed to land on their tenth platter of caprine chaos, simply titled Neue Platte (“new record”). So, as daylight begins to dwindle as we approach the late summer of goat mating season, will this productive pair find roost in the midst of their seductive hircine slamming?
These busy hooves have clopped about for fifteen years now, dropping album-sized nuggets of grooving, brutal deathgrind along the way. With this latest scattering of riff-rich, bleat-heavy, properly pummeling death blasts coming barely a year after 2022’s solid Nach uns die Grindflut, the question of safe scatological frequency comes to the top of the list. Milking the Goatmachine, after all, deal in the typical low variety offerings of predictably-patterned, frequency-rumbling, breakdown-aiming death that owes as much to brutal acts like Dying Fetus or Misery Index as it does the classic growl and tumble of Terrorizer. With little more than a few nimble guitar leads here and there, courtesy of Goatfreed Udder (Carnal Ghoul, Demonbreed), success demands a lot of a few basic ingredients.
And make no mistake, Milking the Goatmachine extract as much as they can out of certain riffs and tricks, staying fresh with a little humor and efficient brutality. It’s unsettling how nonchalantly the same central riff sees three uses broken up by a butt rock bridge (“Extremes Wolves Terror”), a creepy sample (“The Wrong One to Milk With”), all punctuated with a oompa-charged slam (“In Battle There Is No Straw”). Though much of Neue Platte rests in a mid-paced world, which is dangerous territory for bands not named Bolt Thrower, smart jolts of grind, both skronky (“Funky Funeral”) and standard (“Iss’n Köttel, Mach’n Köttel”), and beatdown punctuations (“The Squeal Session,” “Napalm Grass”) keep the flock peeled for an executive order.
For the uninitiated and veteran alike to this self-proclaimed land of no-frills goatgrind—not even one voyage into solo-land here—Neue Platte offers just enough variation to stray away from total self-plagiarism. Technically, they haven’t ripped Sepultura either with their cloven retread of the classic “Roots Bloody Roots” as “Boots Bloody Boots,” a less nu-bounce more death-stomp iteration of the 90s staple. And knowing that George Michael’s karaoke classic “Careless Whisper” boasts a power too great to replicate, Milking the Goatmachine reaches for an anthemic melodeath platform to give their own sax-less spin. Though this playfulness doesn’t come new to these pun-loving Germans, earlier outings seeing goofy cover-ish songs like “Like a Goatmachine”1 or “When a Goat Loves a Woman,”2 it still has its edge and impact.
At this stage of their career, Milking the Goatmachine maintains an identity too uncomplicated to fail if not striking enough to reach for the highest accolades. Though Neue Platte may boast the most balanced sound yet in their discog, it does so at a bit of a loss in grit against the bass attack. Again, not enough to saddle the total experience, but certain moments that could be harder-hitting lack that extra fret-rattling dig. But when the riffs hit right, and drummer/vocalist Goatleeb Udder (Knife, Demonbreed) lays down his workman-like skin-pounding and tactically precise harsh vocal array, Milking the Goatmachine has a lock on a sound built for letting go. Whether on stage, at the bar, or weaving through idiot after idiot who can’t learn to drive in rain, Neue Platte makes a fine addition to the herd—three udders up.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Reaper Entertainment
Websites: milkingthegoatmachine.de | facebook.com/milkingthegoatmachine
Releases Worldwide: August 18th, 2023
