Having unleashed Czech Republic band Root’s most infamous albums ‘Hell Symphony’ and ‘The Book’ a couple of months ago I Hate continue to dust the musky vaults of the arcane group with another couple of welcome releases. What we have here are the group’s debut album ‘Zjevení – (The Revelation)’ which appeared way back in 1990 after the group had gained notoriety via various demo and EP’s and their third release 1992 ‘The Temple In The Underworld’ which came out directly after ‘Hell Symphony.’ It would have actually been nice for review purposes to get these in chronological order but it’s not worth moaning about really.
The track listing of ‘Zjevení’ faithfully sticks to the titles in their original language rather than translating them as did a rare English language version of the album released back in 1991. The spoken word intro makes little sense but you get an idea looking at the album cover that this is going to be a dark and mysterious listen, the corpse make up sported by Jirí "Big Boss" Valter certainly looks like it has been inspired by King Diamond here. The title track has a weird start with spoken intonations before guitars and drums come in and deliver a Frostian yet melodic and accursed sound with wild cackles from the singer setting your nerves on edge around them. This is the equivalent of a Coffin Joe horror film perhaps, unique, dangerous and ultimately dripping with mystery. ‘Aralyon’ warps vocals making them sound alien and demonic and the instrumentation coruscates with some discordant riffs making the whole piece even stranger. On a flurry of drums ‘Výslech’ thrashes away with strange backing noises like attacking bats, it’s really damn odd and it gets stranger as we go on. Primitive but really well produced we are harangued by more speeches that are blood curdling even if we do not know what they are saying Still songs such as ‘666’ are pretty much universal but boy do Root make them sound evil! Everything here comes at you in short sharp and savage bursts, occasionally doom laden before flying off the handle again, numbers such as the feral ‘Démon’ take a really nasty bite.
‘Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata’ if I am not mistaken takes form on the intro of ‘The Temple Of The Underworld’ and is even more sinister when you look at the cover as it plays. ‘Casilda’s Song’ sees Big Boss putting on an austere operatic delivery and again enshrouding us in mystery. The title track leads us down passages with things leaping out to a grim dénouement and no doubt blood sacrifice. Spiny guitars poke at you on the way and the vocals are ever more deranged. Pace changes for an unexpected ballad sung in English on ‘Aposiopesis’. It really throws a loop at you as does ‘The Solitude,’ a piece of Burzemic ambience from a time before the Count saw the inside of prison walls. It’s very mellow basically as is the chant of ‘Voices From…’ It’s left to ‘The Wall’ first metal song in a while to hammer you up and seal your doom, Poe style perhaps, the drum work here particularly stands out. This is an album that has many different nuances and styles to it, feeling at times as if it has been put together with hallucinogenic aid, although having said that it all knits together well. I absolutely love the lush acoustic guitar of ‘My Name’ along with Big Boss simply having a folky sing along to it. It shows other dimensions to the band that were not hinted at on the debut that’s for sure.
Both discs are bolstered by some other rare and live tracks and run for a good hour in length giving you plenty of stuff to root around and find! There are still some more of the band’s albums to be unearthed and hopefully I Hate will be doing so in the future as these really are standout unique releases that are pretty much different from anything out there and well worth Czeching out.
http://www.myspace.com/rootcze
http://www.ihate.se
