“I’m disgusting, I’m a shame to this so-called human race,” sings Clottie Cream on Country Sleaze, one half of the 2016 double A-side debut single by Goat Girl. The flipside, Scum, pondered: “How can an entire nation be so fucking thick?” A bracing introduction to the disaffected, often damning eye that the young London four-piece (Clottie, Rosy Bones on drums, LED on guitar and Naima Jelly on bass) cast over their world before documenting it in rambunctious, idiosyncratic post-punk. “British people are overly polite, which staggers progress,” they told Beat magazine. “We need to talk more openly about sex, religion and mental health. We are human, after all.”
Fearless, omnivorous Goat Girl (named in reference to Bill Hicks’s lusty alter ego, Goat Boy) found each other, and their sound, in Brixton indie venue the Windmill, signing to Rough Trade (over Domino and XL)two years ago before releasing anything. Taking their time and choosing the right home has served them well – their eponymous debut sounds self-assured: 19 songs crafted with care, in which dirty grunge riffs take strange left turns.
Clottie’s dark drawl is an unscratched itch on the lusty, harum-scarum The Man, while Creep, with its keening fiddle, gives voice to the rage of women harassed on public transport (“I really want to smash your head in”). It’s a weird, wily and unpredictable record, getting under the surface of things. Expect to hear Goat Girl trip-trapping over your bridge very soon.
• Goat Girl is released on 6 April on Rough Trade. Goat Girl will be performing and signing instore at Rough Trade East, London E1 on 6 April, 6.15pm; Rough Trade Nottingham, 8 April, 1.30pm; and Rough Trade Bristol, 8 April, 7pm
