Bütcher's "666 Goats Carry My Chariot" is the Best Metal Album of 2020... So Far.

Look at that album art, just bask in its glory, now listen to the music that it represents. Reader, after doing that, can you sit there with a straight face and tell me that you didn’t get everything you expected and then some? I suppose the only way you can is if you have some sort of neurological disorder and were expecting something like Enya.

666 Goats Carry My Chariot is the second album from Antwerp, Belgium’s Bütcher and it’s a Speed Metal masterwork. This band combines all the best parts of Show No Mercy-era Slayer, Mercyful Fate, Diamond Head, Motörhead and Judas Priest with a generous dash of Bathory and Dissection for good measure. There isn’t a single wasted track on the album, it’s all prime cuts, from the second the intro track fades into the Ace of Spades-inspired “Iron Bitch,” to the final note of the somber, acoustic “Exaltation of Sulphur.”

My favorite track on the album, however, has to be the nine-minute, twenty-second long leviathan of a title track. “666 Goats Carry My Chariot” manages to condense all of Bütcher's influences into one musical, magnum opus without losing the individual punch of any, and without overstaying its welcome. It’s also the song in which vocalist R Hellshrieker goes full King Diamond on a track that sounds like it could have come straight off Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane… and you should always go full King Diamond on a track that sounds like it could have come straight off Dissection’s Storm of the Light’s Bane.

If you liked this article, check out my interview with Hanzel und Gretyl