I love seeing Weedeater live, but I wasn’t really a fan of their last album, which came out back in 2011. There were a couple too many goofy tracks on Jason… the Dragon, and other songs weren’t very long or particularly memorable. Put it this way, it was no God Luck and Good Speed. But like I said, it’s been a while since that one.
Goliathan is equally compact, with 10 tracks at a touch over 33 minutes. After church-organ intro “Processional” sets a bizarre stage, the title track kicks in with a sea of sludgy feedback, leading into a pretty decent doom riff. Dixie Dave’s infamous vocal venom rasps overtop the proceedings, setting a rather unpleasant tone—in a good way. Hey, we’re talking ’bout sludge here…
After a coupla solid-but-unspectacular head-nodders, Dixie breaks out the banjo on “Battered & Fried,” which is this album’s answer to “Palms and Opium.” And while I was intrigued by a tune called “Bully,” this one shuffles off in a hurry, fast-paced by Weedeater standards—it’s all over in less than two minutes. The slowed-down “Joseph (All Talk)” contains perhaps the best riff on the album; it’s slow, heavy, and simple, but it’ll get yer head noddin’. Y’know, kinda like Weedeater in general… I could probably do without the three-minute bass solo at the end of the album, though.
