Genre: Neofolk / Ritual / Experimental

01 Prologue: Scars
02 Man Of Fire
03 Sacred
04 Garden Of Love (v.II)
05 Rite Of Spring (v.II)
06 Tunguska
07 Hag=All
08 Lost Horizon
09 Initiation
10 Passage
11 Birth=Rite
12 Flesh Of The Orchid (v.II)
13 Epilogue: Sacrisphere

“Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” is the fourth release by :Golgatha: and consists of 13 tracks that are inspired by the writings of the French philosopher Georges Bataille. While based in neo-folk, the music branches out into other genres and the songs contain many unexpected influences from ambient, to martial and ritual drums. “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” comes in a lavish A5 digipack with a 32-page booklet containing absolutely beautiful photography for each song on the CD and most have accompanying lyrics or text. Cold Meat has truly done a fantastic job on the packaging to make the visual aspect that goes with the music truly memorable.

The music on “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” varies quite a lot from song-to-song, being based only partially on folk. The opening, “Prologue: Scars”, reminded me of a nice starting piece for a martial industrial album. This thought became quickly dispelled though when “Man of Fire” gets going as we are treated to more traditional neo-folk with male spoken voice overtop the acoustics. Nice and simple drums and keys fill in the background and add emphasis where needed. There are also odd tracks that are extremely difficult to define and label as a specific genre that are clearly outside the realm of folk of any kind such as “Sacred”. Based on piano, wind instruments, and what sounds like bones were being rattled, the album takes an almost ritualistic approach that feels very foreign. “Sacred” is an interesting contrast to the two songs that precede it and this combination of styles is a fairly good indication of how “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” plays out; constantly mixing up genres throughout giving the listener something new on almost every song – or at least something different than the song before or after it. “Garden of Love (v.II)” – a remake of a previous song – is one of the best on the CD and shows :Golgatha: returning to their neo-folk sound but this time with a strong and much welcomed female voice performed by the female member Sorakey. Featuring some of the catchier guitar on the CD and the nicest vocals, it is a shame there were not a couple more songs using Sorakey in such a fashion.

There are enough tracks on “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” that contain heavy uses of ritual drumming that I feel their inclusion in the review is warranted. The songs that feature such drumming are not necessarily my style, but they are decent. A rough comparison might be someone like Sephiroth or the music Ulf Söderberg releases under his own name. That being said, “Golgatha” make less use of eastern influences than Ulf’s does in his music and the drums are not usually as intense as, although “Tunguska” does contain an eastern feel especially towards the end.

If you are an open minded fan of folk in some variety or another, you might like “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” by :Golgatha:. Just be warned that the folk material only makes up about one-third of the album. This might be better suited to fans of more experimental ambient / ritualistic who have some level of interest in folk music instead of die hard folk fans. While not really touching on any one area that I listen to frequently, I still found this to be an enjoyable CD and it contains at least a couple of songs that I would throw on fairly regularly. The music is well done however and for fans of this style I believe this would be a worthwhile CD to purchase. Overall “Tales of Transgression & Sacrifice” by :Golgatha: is a solid but not spectacular release.