More about: Goat Girl

“We used to come to the Roundhouse to practice when we were like...fifteen,” Goat Girl vocalist Lottie Pendlebury recounts as the band saunter out into the scopic, and almost entirely silent, centre of the cult London venue.

It’d be easy to assume the band might be daunted by the set up—the venue is entirely seated, with an audience of almost exclusively middle-aged men perched on pews that encircle the stage like a warped wedding or a very imposing sort of school assembly—but the foursome seem unperturbed as they stride into the assured and apocalyptic ‘The Crack’. 

And, as the South London natives meander through a spiky and self-confident live show, the night doesn’t really seem like that far a cry from those early teenage days of trundling up to the Roundhouse to rehearse. While the band’s line-up has shifted slightly and their sound inevitably ripened and spruced itself up with age, the playful, DIY dynamic that underpins Goat Girl’s ethos remains unchanged: breezing through a casual, but well-thought-out and well-accomplished set, the foursome appear more like a group of friends hashing out some new material as opposed to critically-acclaimed musicians riding on the back of a second-album high. 

That isn’t to say there’s anything to fault about the band’s sound, though, and the swirling, percussive chaos, country-tinged twangs and clean vocal harmonies on tracks like ‘Jazz (In The Supermarket)’, ‘Badibaba’ and ‘Pest’ see Goat Girl at their psychedelic, anxiety-inducing best. Older material seems to get a little less airtime and, to some fans’ chagrin, ‘Viper Fish’ and ‘Cracker Drool’ are the only debut album tracks given an outing over the course of the lengthy and cacophonous hour-long set.

Both support slots are worthy of a mention, too, as Roundhouse resident artist Flâneuse offers up an airy and anodyne slice of orchestral, soul-infused melodies before synthy London staples PVA deliver a floor-shaking, drum-pounding concoction of jittery electro-punk that feels only a tad out of place at 8pm on an otherwise dozy January night. 

The evening is rounded off with a blistering rendition of On All Fours favourite ‘Sad Cowboy’—an eclectic and entangled track that operates as Goat Girl’s answer to a rowdy encore anthem. Peppered with effusive electro-synths and a motley mix of percussion, the clattering psych-disco track entices an avid out-of-time clap-along and an occasional nodding head and stamping foot from an otherwise unstirring audience. 

After countless months of live music operating in a socially-distanced, civilised and seated capacity—or not happening at all, thanks to the government’s haphazard COVID response—it wouldn’t be a surprise if audiences felt a tad fidgety to be shackled to their seats when the rest of the capital’s venues have cautiously reverted to lager-slinging mosh-pit-pummelling revelry. But, really, the sophisticated state of affairs at the Roundhouse has the opposite effect. Rather than being a stale and restless night of anxious foot-tapping and sideward security guard glances at anyone who dared rise from their plastic pew, the evening played out more as a homage to some of London’s most auspicious and offbeat talent: a moment to sit back, take a breathe and, for Goat Girl, appreciate just how far they’ve come. 

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More about: Goat Girl