Album review: GosT – Prophecy

Over the last decade, producer and multi-instrumentalist James Lollar has carved out his own niche as GosT, imbuing synthwave with the morbid imagery and grim attitude of metal at its cultest. The world his music inhabits is nocturnal and sinister, bathed in crimson neon; while its electronic beats might point a bony finger in the direction of the dancefloor, the environment it portrays is more ritual than rave.

New album Prophecy continues in this established trajectory, with Satanic soundbites and Biblical artwork conjuring an end-of-days vibe altogether in keeping with the horror movie synths reverberating throughout. It’s a premise that GosT does well, but this record is most interesting at its extremes, where moments of unexpected accessibility or total mayhem cut through the sonic landscape.

The best example of the former comes in the form of Widow Song, its more conventional song structure and wonky xylophone-sounding hook evoking a lost goth hit of the ’80s. On the other hand, Digital Death opens by descending through nine circles of gabba hell and ends with strafing techno noise and utterly broken beats. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the album’s most metallic riffage, albeit emanating from electronic equipment rather than a guitar, you’ll want to head straight to Golgotha – or Death In Bloom, where a genuine sense of menace pervades even as the track shifts through multiple different modes of attack.

If the foundations of GosT’s work are rather familiar, Prophecy contains enough different iterations to sustain interest without alienating his existing fanbase. This is one horror-fuelled franchise where an abundance of sequels is cause for celebration rather than increasingly weary disinterest.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Nine Inch Nails

Prophecy is released on March 8 via Metal Blade