Being an entirely solo instrumental guitar venture, it’s clear right off the bat that Blackwolfgoat is never going to be for everyone, never going to be the band you put on to get the party going, not the drive fast, blast-it-out-your-window-on-an-open-highway American chronicle. Darryl Shepard, previously of notable Boston outfits like Milligram and Hackman (both also on Small Stone), helms and comprises Blackwolfgoat, and on his full-length debut, Dragonwizardsleeve, he reminds that loops, drones and noise aren’t necessarily relegated as tools only for hipster art students or freakout psychedelics. Somehow, this drone rocks.

Understand that’s a relative statement, but as Dragonwizardsleeve’s opening cut, “Risk and Return,” slowly fades itself out, one comes to understand in listening to it that the track does have structure, a gradual build, more like something off a King Crimson solo album than ambient drone. “Death of a Lifer” brings in distortion and a Neurosis Given to the Rising-type feel (the track I’m thinking of is “Origin”), but never seems settled on itself, even as the same riff cycles through the track with noises added on top of it. There’s an urgency here; a kind of hectic and unsettled feeling. The guitars (Shepard provides a couple) feel on-edge and are huge sonically where on any number of other ambient albums an understated minimalism seems to be the goal. Hearing the cabinet speakers rumble at the end of the track, that’s clearly not the goal for Blackwolfgoat.

The pun-titled “Tinnitus the Night” follows and keeps much the same atmosphere as “Death of a Lifer,” albeit with a somewhat busier execution. It is another distortion build that distorts even unto itself, and though the song is among the shorter on Dragonwizardsleeve at 4:18, it carries an atmosphere much heavier than its runtime. Notable that it fades on both ends, in and out, so that it seems to creep up on you as you listen. Blackwolfgoat is a sneaky project in that it injects complexity into these songs without seeming to do so, but some of the material itself also sneaks up on you.

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Boston-based guitarist Darryl Shepard was kind enough to email in the latest projects he’s working on following the breakup of instrumental Small Stone Records outfit Hackman, whose second and apparently final (though one never knows in music) album, Enterprises, was an underrated gem in 2008. Here’s what he’s got going:

First up is Blackwolfgoat (do I know how ridiculous that sounds? Yes, I do.), which is just myself on electric guitar, creating and layering loops. I’ve played one show so far opening for Cortez and plan on doing some more shows and hopefully some recording. Closest comparisons I can think of for Blackwolfgoat would be Earth or Darsombra.

Also, I’m going to be doing a project with Charlie Harrold from 5ive (drums) called Fighter Captured. This is going to be guitar and drums and 100 percent improvisational. We have two days booked at New Alliance Studios in Boston at the end of February for recording. We’ve discussed what we’re going to shoot for but there will be no rehearsals at all before recording, so needless to say we’re very curious as to what this will sound like. There may be a show or two later, we’ll see.