When I first heard the name of this band I knew I had to hear them. Goblin Cock? The sheer impudence and hilarity of the double entendre intrigued me. It took some time but eventually I got my hands on their debut release, 2005's amusingly titled Bagged And Boarded. I had heard one or two tracks from their Myspace page and was expecting a mixture of weird but otherwise pretty typical stoner/doom metal. I got a bit more than I bargained for.

In the first couple songs the music is characterized mostly by heavy, down-tuned guitars, the riffs chugging along in the standard doom/stoner tradition. However, Childproof is anything but your standard doom/stoner song. The music is amusingly interspersed with what sound like clips from some kind of abstinence education film from the 1950s. The lyrics of this song are equally weird and the overall feel of the song is somewhat surreal. The rest of the album continues in this surreal fashion, with many tempo changes and weird time signatures accompanying the nonsensical lyrics. Most of the songs are around three minutes or less, which is usually good although there are a few that I wish were longer just because they are interesting in a drone metal kind of way, such as Kegrah The Dragon Killer. Either way the songs get their point across without getting bogged down in any lengthy over complications. At times I would have liked to see a bit more guitar soloing or instrumental type stuff, but I do not think it is necessary for this band. Rob Crow's vocal work is pretty good, he utilizes a bunch of different vocal styles throughout the album, sometimes deep and clean, sometimes more punkish or distorted.

This is an album that takes awhile to digest. I've listened to it at least six or seven times all the way through, and I'm still not sure I understand everything that's going on here. The songs all sound different and sort of have their own personalities so there's no distinct theme (except for the overall dreamlike atmosphere that is often created), and the lyrics are equally random and weird. For me personally this is not necessarily a good thing as I enjoy music that I can easily get into, but I do also enjoy being able to listen to an album like this over and over again and still find new things. Honestly though this is probably not an album you will find yourself listening to over and over again unless you really enjoy this kind of bizarre style. Either way it's an original and interesting album by an entertaining band.