If the cover of the new Goat album Medicine reminds you of some lost psych-folk private presses that avid collectors dream about, it just might be a coincidence.
But, then, it just might not be, or as the band notes themselves, “were just trying to move along as freely and open-mindedly as possible”.
Whatever the case is, Goat, again, delivers some potent psych-folk medicine that not only recreates the sound of those late sixties up to mid-seventies wildly scarce private (and not so private) presses but updates it not only with modern production but in playing that sounds like a true bridge between old and new.
It just might not be only the quality of songwriting and its musical and vocal presentation but the personal idea spirit that the band as a whole has invested into this album: “We have a choice to open up as human beings, looking at ourselves honestly”. The ‘Medicine’ of the title may refer to a number of salves, or the value of relationships and love: “For our families, friends, society, this could be done through the use of psychedelics, through meditation, through learning from other people, staying curious and never settling for a ‘solid’ identity”.
This general idea behind the album permeates all the tracks here from the opening ‘Impermanence & Death’ to the concluding ‘Tripping In The Graveyard’, making Goat’s Medicine quite a potent remedy for the impermanence blues.
