THE AUSTRASIAN GOAT is a French one man “band” that was founded by SHALLNOTKILL guitarist / vocalist Julien Louvet, who also runs his own label D.I.Y. 213 Records. Other than that I have no real backing info, so we can focus on the self-titled THE AUSTRASIAN GOAT debut (?) album exclusively here. Musically the featured material should easily please openminded fans of sinister Black Metal in the same way as worshippers of apocalyptic Doom as it perfectly combines the best of both worlds. Each of the songs is ultra heavy and extremely slow, while the overall atmosphere evokes the grimmest and rawest Black Metal (Norwegian style) you can imagine. Here and there you’ll also discover some epic, kinda medieval sounding elements in his writing, that remind me a little bit on Quorthon’s legendary Viking Metal period (yet it is more intense and without the melodic vocals here). In fact, the entire record is by no means “nice” or polished. It’s actually the total opposite! Throughout the whole playing time “The Austrasian Goat” delivers a very tortured feeling and therefore is certainly not suitable for the typical mainstream kids, nor for those depressed souls among you with serious suicidal tendencies… I bet the whole atmosphere is even more effective in the dark autumn / winter time instead of the sunny spring / summer time that we currently experience. To sum things up: not really a record I would play very often, but highly impressive nevertheless. For more info check out: www.myspace.com/austrasiangoat, http://perso.orange.fr/213, www.ihate.se