Rotted Roots

While I thoroughly enjoyed El-Ahrairah's debut album and have heard good things about the demos, Rotted Roots left me extremely unsatisfied. I'm hoping I just picked a dud and some of the other ones are cool, but this is just really quite dreadful. I was expecting something more along the lines of raw black metal meets harsh noise, but this is something more akin to (depressive) black/doom mixed with some shitty Cascadian black metal (thankfully minus the lame acoustic strumming).

The demo starts with the nearly twenty minute stinker "Rotted Roots". This was a real slog to get through and I probably would have turned it off early if I were not planning on reviewing it. It starts with mid paced sort-of black metal led by a succession of apathetic power chords which are clearly meant to be a tension-filled build up, but they can't really pull it off. The next section is a depressive black/doom plod, complete with lame DSBM histrionic shrieks. This is a real patience-tester and I commend you if you're able to make it through it. Then things really get perplexing, the pace is kicked up a few notches and we're treated to what is essentially Cascadian black metal. It basically sounds like a shit-tier Skagos. This goes on for a ridiculously long time without really doing anything and it's truly baffling that this song is so long. "Beautiful Promised Land" is probably even worse. it's an experimental lo-fi attempt at post rock interspersed with lots of dramatic spoken word samples. It could have been alright as a two minute interlude or whatever, but nine minutes is absolutely ridiculous.

This demo is quite lo-fi, and while this often works to black metal's advantage, this is hardly the case here. What they're going for (or at least what I think they're going for) does call for at least somewhat better production. Also, the execution is lacking. What I really think happened is they tried to do something they weren't really ready for as musicians yet. The drumming is particularly weak and rudimentary, with the production on the drums being horribly muffled. There's just way too much filler here, and both songs run well over double what their running lengths should have been.

I still plan on checking out their other demos, and I've heard their early ones at least are quite noisy, which would probably work a lot better with the lo-fi production. Either way, lots of good bands have a few shitty demos under their belts, and their new album fully realizes the rawness mixed with atmosphere and grandeur it seems they were attempting here.