Following their score for the 2017 British independent horror film Double Date, GOAT return this month with their second soundtrack album ‘The Gallows Pole’ ; a three-part adaptation of Benajmin Myers’ novel aired recently on BBC Two and available to watch now on BBC iPlayer, written and directed by Shane Meadows. A true story of resistance, The Gallows Pole is a gripping tale of a revolutionary criminal enterprise in a desperate Yorkshire town that risked death to feed their families.
This album includes five brand new tracks from the score and three existing GOAT tracks Shane Meadows selected from their back catalogue. GOAT were already fans of Meadows’ work, in particular the various iterations of This Is England, and understood the importance of music to him, noting that: “Music is a central part to everything he has done”, and describing it as a “blessing” when they were approached about the project.
The series, based in rural 18th century Yorkshire, tells a fictionalised tale based on the true story of David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners, which became the biggest fraud in British history. The themes and imagery of Myers’ novel are the perfect fit for the band’s mystical, pagan aesthetic, having cultivated a mythology of anonymity from the outset around the band hailing from the remote village of Korpilombo in northern Sweden.
The talismanic Let It Burn, originally released as a standalone single in 2018, opens the soundtrack. This track was one of the key inspirations to Meadows as he was producing the series, and closes each episode. The other two existing tracks are Fill My Mouth, and the live favourite Gathering of Ancient Tribes. The album’s epic centrepiece is The Gate Is Open (The Temple Lies Within), an eastern-tinged raga that takes nine and a half minutes to unfold.
Sometimes though, when music and visuals are brought together, the results are best heard and seen, and as GOAT themselves conclude, “music is never easily explained with words“.
You can watch the whole series on BBC iPlayer now. The score to The Gallows Pole was released digitally and on Bandcamp on 7th July via Rocket Recordings, with a vinyl release to follow in 2024.
Main photo credit: Andreas Johansson
