The enigmatic name is, or course, from
Lovecraft. The phonetically bizarre world of Lovecraft's
mythos has attracted many, many bands to use names of
entities and places from its stories and
legends. Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods With a
Thousand Young is a dark and terrible alien fertility
goddess in the mythos, sometimes depicted as a demonic goat,
sometimes as an enormous amorphous mass spawning her "Dark
Young"-- huge tentacled tree-like hulks with shaggy goats
legs and hooves -- in an endless orgy of reproduction. The
extremity and sinister nature of such imagery suits the
music of this band perfectly. If ever there were music for
the mythos, this is surely the archetype.
Thanks mainly to Shub-Niggurath in being so very helpful with information and literature. I am grateful also to Steve Feigenbaum of Cuneiform and Pete Thelen of Exposé for assistance.
Text used with kind permission of Exposé Magazine.