Goatlord (band)

Goatlord was an American extreme metal band from Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

Biography

Goatlord began in 1985 although they did not release their first demo until June 1987. Their initial recording was a mixture of doom metal and death metal only titled 1987 Demo. A cult following grew and tape-traders renamed this first demo as Forever Black Dwell in Hell, a line take from the song "Unholy Black Slut". Their second demo, Sodomize the Goat expanded Goatlord's metallic sound. Goatlord began to change their musical style into a slower style of metal sound and continued to record only one more demo in 1991 before tensions grew about the band's progression. The majority of the members wanted to go towards a slower, more droning approach and the debate continued until vocalist Ace Stills ventured off with his own band Doom Snake Cult.

Goatlord's received a recording contract with Turbo Records and with their remaining members, began to work on their first full-length record without Ace. They had hired Mitch Harris of Napalm Death as their replacement vocalist. The entire album was recorded with Mitch as the vocalist and only a few last-minute adjustments needed to be compiled before mastering. At this time Ace returned and asked to rejoin the developing band. The remaining members conceded and briefly re-united. It was unknown to the band that when Ace laid down his vocal tracks for the album, he recorded over Mitch's vocal tracks, destroying them. There were not any other versions of Mitch's vocals and those tracks have become lost. While Mitch's vocals did not appear on that album, his contributions to back-up vocals did make it on the Reflections of the Solstice album.

In 2007 Nuclear War Now Productions released their CD The Last Sodomy of Mary. This album contains nine songs that were recorded after Reflections of the Solstice but were unreleased until now. The limited LP version comes with a second vinyl with 7 additional tracks of unreleased, live, and cover material.

Tensions ensued between the band members which led to Goatlord's dissolution in 1997. Jeff Nardone is currently in death metal band Spun in Darkness formed in 2006. Jeff Schwob has recorded under the name Schwob since 2011. Former guitarist Joe Frankulin administrated the shock website Bloodshows.com until his death in 2015, after committing a murder-suicide involving his neighbor and her 8-year-old son.

Discography

Demos

• 1987: Demo '87
• 1988: Sodomize the Goat
• 1991: Promo '91

Albums (Studio)

• 1991: Reflections of the Solstice
• 1992: Goatlord

Albums (Compilations)

• 2003: Distorted Birth: The Demos
• 2007: The Last Sodomy of Mary
• 2015: Demo '87 / Reh '88

Albums (Split)

• 2004: Foreshadow / Reaper Of Man (Split with Nunslaughter)
• 2019: Gravewürm / Nunslaughter / Goatlord / Funeral Nation

Members

Final lineup

• Joe Frankulin - guitars (1985–1997; died 2015)
• Jeff Nardone - drums (1985–1997)
• Jeff Schwob - bass, vocals (1986–1997)
• Chris Gans - vocals (1991–1997)

Earlier members

• Ace Still - vocals (1985–1991, 1991; died 2017)
• Hal Floyd - bass (1985-1986)
• Mitch Harris - vocals (1991)

Timeline <timeline> ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:100 bottom:80 top:5 right:15 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1985 till:06/01/1997 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy

Colors =

 id:vocals      value:red          legend:Vocals
 id:guitar      value:green        legend:Guitar
 id:bass        value:blue         legend:Bass
 id:drums       value:orange       legend:Drums
 id:studio      value:black        legend:Studio_album
 id:other       value:gray(0.5)    legend:Demo
 id:bars        value:gray(0.95)

BackgroundColors = bars:bars Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:3 ScaleMajor = increment:1 start:1985

LineData =

layer:back
color:studio
at:09/13/1991
at:06/01/1992

LineData =

layer:back
color:other
at:06/21/1987
at:06/01/1988
at:06/01/1991

BarData =

bar:Ace   text:"Ace Still"
bar:Mitch text:"Mitch Harris"
bar:Chris text:"Chris Gans"
bar:Joe   text:"Joe Frankulin"
bar:Hal   text:"Hal Floyd"
bar:Jeff  text:"Jeff Schwob"
bar:Jeff2 text:"Jeff Nardone"

PlotData=

width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4)
bar:Ace   from:01/01/1985 till:03/01/1991   color:vocals
bar:Mitch from:03/01/1991 till:07/01/1991   color:vocals
bar:Ace   from:07/01/1991 till:11/01/1991   color:vocals
bar:Chris from:11/01/1991 till:end          color:vocals
bar:Joe   from:01/01/1985 till:end          color:guitar
bar:Hal   from:01/01/1985 till:06/01/1986   color:bass
bar:Jeff  from:06/01/1986 till:end          color:bass
bar:Jeff  from:06/01/1986 till:end          color:vocals width:3
bar:Jeff2 from:01/01/1985 till:end          color:drums 
</timeline>

External links

• The official Goatlord site
• Nuclear War Now Productions