A Look into "Goliath" by Karnivool

Karnivool is a progressive rock band from Australia with a "smashing" lineup of talented musicians. The drummer, Steve Judd, has come up with fun and complex compositions that suit the music well. Goliath is the first track off of their 2013 release "Asymmetry" and features some nasty (in a good way) grooves.

Common in his work are catchy but technical drum parts, and Goliath is no exception.

The song opens with six measures of guitar, no metric pulse is obvious. The only part of the song to deviate from the time signature pattern is just before the band enters, in the eighth measure. Instead of playing a measure of 6/8 (the last measure in the repeating pattern) the guitars play a measure of 3/8 and then the drums and bass guitar enter and the pulse is established. Eight bars after that vocalist Ian Kenny starts his first verse with some legato head voice, adding in vibrato and creating a nice contrast to his more aggressive chest voice. He switches between the two frequently in the few parts of the song.

 The song is in eight bar (or measure) phrases. The pattern is as follows: 6/8, 8/8. 6/8, 8/8, 6/8, 8/8, 6/8, 6/8. The entire song follows this pattern. The coolest part of this is how "normal" it feels, for a relatively uncommon time signature.

Steve Judd keeps eighth notes on the hi-hats throughout the first few parts of the track. the kick drum falls pretty consistently on the "1"s and "3"s. The snare drum falls on beats "4" in the 6/8 measures and beat "6" in the 8/8 measures. On some of the bars of 8/8, Judd will drop a note on the hi-hat and open the hi-hats when he does hit them to really exaggerate the extra length of time, which is two beats, creating a turnaround into the following measure of 6/8. This makes it feel like that is the beginning of a new phrase, however, the real "beginning" is after the two measures back-to-back 6/8.

There is an "A" and a "B" that alternate twice, followed by two "C"s. A, B, A, B, C, C is the pattern for the first part of the song. after that the texture, feel, and lyrical groupings change while maintaining the 6/8 and 8/8 alternating time signature.

This song is an absolute blast to play and one of my go-to's when I need to warm up on the drum kit. It is a technically challenging song that has atmosphere and dynamics, a winning combination. Analyzing it has made me love it even more. If you don't like the song, which is perfectly fine, I hope you also can at least appreciate the  musicianship that went into creating it.