You wouldn't know it, but there
is actually one really good reason to listen to Root. You certainly won't find it in the
uber-awkward Hail Lord SATAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1! \,,/\,,/ themes running throughi the lyrics,
which yield such timeless gems as "my raging roar crushes brains of hypocrites."
Nor is it the super fantabulous special boon bestowed upon us, purchasers of the album - a
mind bendingly repetitive fifteen minute chant tacked onto the end of the last track that
will have you wishing for a q-tip and a hammer just as soon as you regain your composure
after obviously being in a state of trancelike awe and nirvana from the first, oh, forty
seven times the four lines are repeated, all naturally complete with a doddering spoken
voice that's not quite monotone but could just as well be since everyone sounds more or
less the same on your stereo after you ram your finger into the OFF button. Right. I can
totally picture the band sitting around the studio, er, I mean gloomy forest, giving each
other high fives for being able to muster up such a downright keen chunk o' songwriting
wizardry...
Geh, ok, as much as I "hate" to be Mr. Negative in my reviews, it seems a tad
pointless here, what with Black Seal being the rousing slab of tr00 metal that it is. And
actually being a good one at that, which in and of itself is a pretty amazing achievement
right there. Indeed. So now would probably be a good time for that one reason. And here it
is. Vocals. Or to be more exact, the vocals of...Big Boss. Yep, positively booming with
sheer lung power the likes of which have to be heard to be believed, the man roars and
bellows with all the unabated furor of some cataclysmic storm, easily cementing himself as
one of the most astonishingly intense singers out there. What's downright scary about the
performance is that while wallowing in his overly pompous, overly theatrical stylings, the
man also retains a darn near perfect level of subtlety, constantly coming to the very
brink but always stopping just short of overdoing. Throw in the morose whispers, the
dissonant shrieks, the frantic spoken word bits that often find themselves bestrewn upon
the songs, and you have one hell of a dynamic vocalist. Living up to his moniker, the long
bearded quinquagenarian also happens to be the band's leader and visionary, and complete
with his creepy appearance, he is above all the band's personality, lending a sort of
puzzling solemnity to what could have just as easily been overcooked Satanic schlock.
Come to think of it, my little bee-otching session earlier covered just about all that's
rotten in the land of Root. So more good stuff, I guess...
While there's nary a doubt that Big Boss pretty much steals the show, Black Seal still
houses a number of other strong points to complement the ever so cool vocals. The
atmosphere, for one, is perfectly bleak, dipping its brush into what may at first seem
like the typical dark metal palette. But isn't. Now granted, everything from the patented
"brooding introspection" (The Mirror of Soul) to moments of "rampaging
horror" (The Festival of Destruction, Nativity) to "bits of the
otherworldly" (Salamandra) to the requisite climactic hymn (...Before I Leave!) finds
its way here. Certainly can't blame Root for not doing their homework. And while this
would normally be the place where the band would get scolded and given a bally good
thrashing for rehashing old formulas and stagnating their way through an album's worth of
material, guess what? It's not so much what Root does, it's how they do it, and it's here
that they earn big time marks for innovation. A little Solitude Aeternus riff here, a
little Moonspell melody there can't hide the fact that the band has got originality up the
wazoo, even if it's more apparent in how the music feels rather than how it sounds. And it
feels...different. To say the least. The general vibe is - and I'm honest to God trying to
be serious here - of a hellish, downright demonic nature. For the lack of a better word,
Black Seal just sounds, well...evil. Really. It's a very fine line Root walks here between
being dark in an artistic way and dark in that inadvertent self ridicule way, and while
the material does cross over into the latter camp from time to time - this is due in large
part to the lyrics' less than stolid syntax and Big Boss's propensity for mispronouncing
every word that ends in a freakin' letter - it definitely succeeds more often than not, so
kudos to the band for keeping a straight face through the process and in the end coming
out all the better because of it.
There's tons more of course, from the marvelous guitar work to the superb production job
all the way down to the nifty packaging - otherwise known as all the extraneous stuff I
won't bore you with. Instead I think I'll be donning my preacher's garb and doing a little
sermonizin' to finish off. Bear with me now while ah do mount mah pedestal. There. So
anyway, the basic gist of it is this - as of late, the bulk of metal music that I've been
subjecting myself to has gone from stagnant mediocrity to worse. Or maybe it's just me and
my waning interests. Whatever the reason, I've long since started to look for musical
fulfillment elsewhere, and the more I give yet another hyped up
"metal-masterpiece-to-be" a shot only to find myself either bored to tears or
simply stunned by the sheer awfulness of it all, the further I'm pulled away from the
genre whose artists seem just sooo enamored with limiting their potential. Naturally - and
thankfully - there are the always welcome exceptions, and Root is as perfect example of
one as you can ask for. Lemme tell you, it's quite the refreshing experience to hear a
band playing considerably heavy music where the heaviness actually makes sense and does
not stem out of some trite "obligation" to "stay metal"; a band that
is not completely obsessed with waving their moronic 'WE are TRUE!!!!1" banner around
in some pithy attempt to justify the existence of their worthless output. And so forth and
so on. Hmmm...looks as if my fledgling little sermon just blossomed into a full scale
rant, and seeing as how I do so hate to take up valuable review space, methinks I best
wrap it up. And fast. So here's the bottom line in all its simplistic glory - as long as
bands like Root continue to put out albums like the one you just read about, metal will
retain credibility. And I for one think that's the best compliment a band can get. Well,
that and the two reviews in one of course ;-)
Ratings:
8.6
Review by ilya-
More
Metal Reviews |
