Band:	King Potenaz
Album:	Goat Rider
Style:	Stoner doom metal
Release date:	April 2023

01. Among The Ruins
02. Pyramids Planet
03. Goat Rider
04. Pazuzu (3:33)
05. Cosmic Voyagers
06. Moriendoom (La Ballata Di Ippolita Oderisi)
07. Monolithic
08. Dancing Plague

King Potenaz have a psychedelic band logo, and their debut album is not only called Goat Rider, but features a goat riding a motorbike along a rainbow road (or, more accurately, the red end of the rainbow) on its cover. I feel like I probably don’t need to tell you that this record falls somewhere within the domain of stoner rock.

King Potenaz are an Italian power trio who formed in 2019 following a series of jam sessions, although the members have experience in the metal scene dating back to the 90s, in black, doom and punk projects such as Helvete, Moriendoom and No Exit. When they started to write their own music, they drew upon inspiration from iconic names in the stoner and doom scenes, including Sleep, Electric Wizard, Kyuss, Monster Magnet and Black Sabbath. Realistically, it’s not a range of influences broad enough to expect anything particularly innovative to emerge from, and the stoner rock/metal scene is one in which new bands need to be either new in some way or of a very high standard to positively stand out. With Goat Rider, King Potenaz aren’t quite there yet.

Is there any sign of originality here? Well, not especially, but the band do at least avoid taking too much from any one single sound within the stoner scene. The opening song is a classic example of bluesy doom, but subsequent songs dive quite eagerly into desert rock and mellow psychedelic jams. Perhaps the most distinctive song here is “Pyramids Planet”; its almost droning riffing is elevated by some well-integrated quasi-Egyptian guitar leads. Another element that stands out on Goat Rider is its bluesiness; on top of “Among The Ruins”, the warbling walls of droning, doomy sound in the closing stages of the title track are moved forward by a swinging drum rhythm, and other songs make use of similar rhythms to good effect. That ‘warbling’ tone of the guitars in slower passages also draws one’s attention; the undulating waves of fuzz add an interesting texture beyond pure distortion, such as midway through “Pazuzu (3:33)”. However, while these different elements do make Goat Rider more than a one-trick pony, all of these ideas (with the possible exception of the leads in “Pyramids Planet”) have been heard plenty of times before in stoner rock and metal, and often all together.

Moving on from originality and onto quality, how enjoyable is this album? Overall, I’d say it’s a decent, but slightly unremarkable, effort. The recent debuts from Eye Of Doom and Håndgemeng have convinced me that new stoner metal bands can be impressive without reinventing the wheel, and compared to their standard, there is a lack of overall engagement for me with Goat Rider; at the same time, though, I’m not averse to spending quality time with this record. When I think of its most impressive moments, the aforementioned “Pyramids Planet” and climax of the title track stand out; I also get a lot of enjoyment out of the main riffs in the aptly named “Monolithic”, a song that finds a satisfying doomy groove and rides it. Perhaps the highlight of Goat Rider, however, is the psychedelic jam in the closing minutes of final song “Dancing Plague”: a charming, spacious and warm passage that doesn’t rely on elaborate soloing, but instead features simple clean guitar motifs riding along with a smooth, mellow rhythm section before King Potenaz come back in for a dense, fuzzy climax.

Beyond these songs and moments, Goat Rider is fine, but doesn’t impress me as much as I would need it to in order to make an impact in a saturated scene where dedicated YouTube channels can seemingly upload professionally made records on a near-daily basis. In terms of areas in which it falls short, I’m inclined to look first at the production; this is a surprisingly quiet album for a stoner doom record. It isn’t an issue in the mellower jammy parts, but there’s times where the riffs that are intended to be huge don’t really make the impact you assume is intended. The production also affects the vocals; I wouldn’t say the vocals are the strongest part of King Potenaz, with the chorus of “Monolithic” slightly dragging it down, but there’s times on “Pyramids Planet” and “Dancing Plague” in particular where they’re weirdly low in the mix. The sound of “Among The Ruins” and “Pyramids Planet” have considerably improved from the versions on the band’s 2022 Demo 6.66, but there’s still further room to improve.

As far as songwriting goes, Goat Rider doesn’t get off to the strongest start with a fairly pedestrian and plodding opening song, but it’s more in the middle portion of its runtime that I find my attention waning. “Pazuzu (3:33)” does in some ways stand out by having a guest vocalist in Sibilla, and her lighter and more accomplished vocals do positively contribute to the track, but the riffs are fairly forgettable. More so are those on “Moriendoom (La Ballata Di Ippolita Oderisi)”, which, despite having ‘doom’ in its name, is more engaging its quieter, jammier bookending passages. I don’t particularly dislike any of these songs, but when placed together, they do cause Goat Rider to drag in a way that neither Eye Of Doom’s The Sapient nor Håndgemeng’s Ultraritual did. This is a respectable first collection of songs from King Potenaz, and one from which genre fanatics will derive satisfaction, but I feel it’s somewhat average within the context of the scene as a whole.