Artist: Root
Title: Heritage of Satan
Type: Album
Label: Agonia

The legendary Root, are the second best BM band from the Czech Republic’s early BM wave (Master’s Hammer being the best). Their early albums/demos are legendary and no one can take that away from them. Root are also one of those bands who have released new material consistently since founded back in 1987. After experimenting with different musical directions, Root have returned to the black metal roots with Heritage of Satan their first album since 2007. This is not saying that there ain’t a lot going on here; we get some crust, black, punk, nu-metal and sludge among others.

Now I would definitely consider myself a Root fan of old and I’m more than aware that they do not take themselves too seriously, which is fair enough. The biggest problem is that consequently this seemingly lacks purpose. The whole thing seems disorganized in many ways and it doesn’t feel like a proper concept was ever considered. Heritage of Satan is a classic hit & miss album… with these hits and misses occurring bit by bit rather than song by song. On the other hands the musicianship is fantastic and tight, as is the general sound. It is the song-writing that really let’s them down. For example Darksome Prophet which has a very nice punky/old school BM vibe to it (these bits are by far the strongest of the album), will break into a nu-metallic breakdown with Necrophagistic sweeping. Horrible enough these sorts of moments are not a rarity and sadly even Deathklok comes to mind at times.

Big Boss’ vocals are the same old haunting harshly spoken curses, but it certainly feels like something is missing. The double layering is also far from awesome. Vocal patterns are also often either predictable and/or very repetitive. Though this is not saying that some are wicked! Guest appearances are also made by E of Watain and Nergal of Behemoth. So to conclude, this is by no means a terrible album, it’s catchy and full of choruses to chant along to. I would conclude that it is a solid album with some great moments…it is just that much more is expected from a band like Root…even in 2011!

http://rootan.net

Miika Virtanen

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