ROOT – Kärgeräs – Return From Oblivion

[schema type=”review” name=”ROOT –  Kärgeräs – Return From Oblivion” description=”Label: Agonia Records” author=”Basak Günel” pubdate=”2016-11-25″ ]

Root is a black metal band from The Czech Republic. Founded in 1987, they are regarded as one of the original pre-second-wave black metal bands. Their style can be described as rather ‘progressive’ as they mix the dark metal sound with the clean vocals. Their latest record “Kärgeräs – Return From Oblivion” has been released last month.

I gotta admit that I have never heard the name of this band before although I am more or less familiar with the black metal bands. As soon as I got the promo, the ideology of the band’s character as well as the sound of the album caught my attention. There are surely lots of ‘melodic black metal’ bands out there but what makes Root quite different from others is the operatic and progressive vocals of Big Boss as well as the sound of the album. Surely, the essence of the sound is based on black metal but the more I spun the record, the more I realized that the band does not use the typical BM sound that we know but their approach is a mixture of the occult elements and the typical 80s heavy metal sound. So I must say that I was quite surprised when listening to the record as I expected a more ‘occult’ and ‘mystical’ sound rather than the typical heavy metal sound. Nevertheless, the record is definitely interesting and it will catch your attention from the first spin.

When I spun the record a few times, some songs like “Black Iris” and “The Key To The Empty Room” stayed in my head more than the others. The highlight is definitely “Moment of Hope” though; I always love these acoustic, ballad-like, dark songs in the black metal albums and I even hoped for more acoustic songs like these in this record. In this sense, the album offers some surprises here and there. However, I have to say that despite a few songs, it took me a while to get used to the record… It might be because I expected a bit more atmosphere and darkness and less ‘heavy metal’ sound. So I couldn’t feel this huge spark in the record generally… Nevertheless, if you like clean vocals and a polished sound in black metal albums, you might like this record. The vocals are definitely unique and considering the ideology of the band, this record is worth spinning.

Line-up:
BigBoss – vocals
Igor – bass
AD – guitar
Hanz – guitar
Paul Dread – drums

Tracklist: 01. Life Of Demon 02. Osculum Infame 03. Moment Of Fright 04. The Book Of Death 05. Black Iris 06. Moment Of Hope 07. The Key To The Empty Room 08. New Empire 09. Up To The Down 10. Do You Think Is It The End?

Links:
ROOT Official
ROOT Facebook