Metal Underground.com

Goatcraft's sole member, Lonegoat, returns with his sophomore release "The Blasphemer," a neoclassical opus devoted to the works of William Blake, who was an English poet and painter during the Romantic Age with unique visions. On canvas, Blake portrayed his thoughts on religion and the supernatural, often depicting spirits or painting multiple scenes to comprise a story. Lonegoat uses each image and idea as an outlet for his own dark mind.

"Intro-Behemoth" is a brooding number influenced by Blake's painting "Behemoth And Leviathan." The ominous vibe makes sense as Blake's painting shows God pointing below to the monsters, Leviathan and Behemoth. The following track "Temptation and Fall" adheres to the beauty in darkness motif where light piano keys create a sense of wonder: The Apple and Original Sin are glorious discoveries. The track captures the glowing essence of Adam, Eve, and the apples seen overhead in Blake's painting "The Temptation and the Fall of Eve."

"The House of Death" is an audio rendering of Blake's painting by the same name, which was an ode to Book XI of Milton's "Paradise Lost." This track begins sluggishly like adapting to an incredible scene, but then Lonegoat picks up the pace, his fingers dancing gracefully like the visions of misery dancing in front of Adam's eyes.

"The Eternal Prayer of Urizen" and "Hecate" hinge more on ethereal key notes and less on piano. These tracks bring to mind the "dungeon" days of Mortiis. There is a grandiosity inherit on the four tracks devoted to "The Great Red Dragon." Each of the four watercolors were created with the Book of Revelations and this particular line in mind: “And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." Each intense striking of the keys seems to say "Behold!"

Since the outpouring of black metal that hit the States in the late '90s, metal heads have found a new appreciation for keyboards and piano. These instruments bring a type of atmosphere unreachable through guitar, bass, and drums. "The Blasphemer" belongs in the fold with Thomas Harris's "Red Dragon" book and Bruce Dickinson's "Chemical Wedding" as a valuable piece of modern pop culture inspired by the late-great William Blake. Also, fans of keyboard albums by Burzum and Mortiis should find a piece of dark solace in "The Blasphemer."