Destitute Souls – Ten cryptic stories from the darkest side of times

Grown up in the eighties, I remember high school disco nights where we, teenagers, were burning up the dance floor to Italian pop bands, Talking Heads, Erasure, Haddaway, Depeche Mode, Bon Jovi, and other cult hitmakers. Disco, new wave, synthpop, rock together – trust me, this insane DJ’s mix seemed very eclectic for young heads and bodies. The most popular slow song was Scorpion’s “Still Loving You” when girls were waiting for the most popular boy in the class to favor them with an invitation for a dance. The debut GOOT album plunged me into a nostalgic mood when I was young, careless and wasn’t under the dogma that metalheads should be brutal and never dance. Hail to dance metal! – this is what jumped to my mind while I was listening to GOOT’s “Destitute Souls” and …moving, as you can’t stop but dance to it.

But, let’s start from the beginning. Yan Fedyaev, the composer, guitarist and vocalist, leader of melodic death metal band Dissector and gothic metal The Lust, has decided to use music material which was accumulated during last few years but wasn’t matching the concept of his main bands. Without any obligation to the bands members, he cooperated with Randy Gerritse, journalist and lyricist, and created project GOOT, where he plays guitars, bass and performs as a vocalist, he invited TB, his long-term friend and “crime” partner to make programming and mix, two guests were involved into work on the album (Hellen Ethereal, ex-Antilav singer, and Simon Sut, Italien bassist from A Thousand Reasons band). The cover art was elaborated by Yan’s friend and famous Russian digital artist Pablo The Elephant (Pavel Antonov).

“Destitute Souls” consists of 10 songs, first five of which are authentic, written by Yan and Randy, the second portion of five represents covers of popular pop/rock hits by Planet Funk, Paradise Lost, Tiamat, Deepest Blue, and Fever Ray. As a result, we get a dance rock/metal set which slightly reminds (just as a concept, not musically) Pain remixes and heavier Depeche Mode with more keys in major. Yan tried to unite, according to his own words, quality riffing, good old heavy metal, minor and a party mood into one concept. In spite of a party flavor, the choice of lyrics wasn’t feather-minded at all, Randy’s lyrics talk about inner contradictions of a human being, of our contemporary trying to survive in a century of permanent stress and pressure, having to make hard choices.

I think that the concept was absolutely successful. Dance-not-dance, metal-not-metal, this album rocks. I am sure that GOOT will conquer their bunch of fans and will continue living as a great concept and a band.
So, open your ears wide, lol, and get ready to rock, dance and sing along with Destitute Souls by GOOT!