Dead Man's Root - Mouth Breather



Jay Snyder - Hellride

Hailing from the UK, featuring brothers from Brooklyn and an Italian bass player; Dead Man’s Root sound just about as odd as the composition that they are built from. This is metal by the way of doom with just a touch of other influences thrown in to round out the mix. The structures of many of the songs are decidedly metal but the guitar work is unique and toys with several different flavors to get a rich sound that operates in a realm beyond just straight-up metal.

Dead Man’s Root get on my good side right from the get go with “Herbert West” a song that is based on one of my absolute favorite horror characters. It also helps that the track has more than just the title going for it. This track is a tricky slab of metal to say the least. The dissonant plod of the opening chords are interspersed with sweeping clean parts that gallop off in the distance as ripping, groove-tinged metal assaults the senses with driving riffs and intense double bass kicks that lead the charge into a punishing direction. The vocals are a bit strange but work well with what they are doing. They’ve got a weird tonality for sure that combines a gruff singing style that is dramatic in the way that a power metal vocal is. Now when I mention power metal, don’t get scared if you hate the stuff because the actual sound of Ben’s voice sounds nothing like it. It just has an expansive feel that rides hard by the side of the music. Here and there he unleashes a searing scream or two but mostly it is this strange, coarse singing that is dueling toe to toe with the music in this track. The song rumbles furiously until another shift into acoustic beauty becomes present giving the song an incredible amount of personality. An appropriately bombastic ending to “Herbert West” paves the path for the rippling, clean intro to “Sailor Song”. Once again we are greeted by a band that knows how to open a song with some killer mood. This track gets a bit doomed-out whenever the distortion kicks back in as glacial riffs and explosive screams glide over a wall of rhythmic weight. The songs eases up the brooding menace with another moment of acoustic strum and a part that is more easily identifiable as a chorus. A melody laced riff is introduced as the vocals strip down a lot of their grit for a decidedly more harmonic approach. It doesn’t sound cheesy or forced therefore maintaining my full attention as the band repeats each of these parts one last time before launching into full-on tectonic movement as the end of the song pays its dues to the metal gods one last time. I must also mention that there is an awesome little solo before the end kicks in and it painted a huge smile across my face.

Things head down the back alley for a little brawl with “Indie Fags Fuck Off” that reeks with equal parts noise-rock beat down and dirty doom swing. It is a shorter, less complex track from what we were greeted with thus far but still gets its point off with conviction. My only problem is that the title is just a bit inappropriate in comparison for the rest of the record. I mean the song is good but it feels like it should be the title of a grindcore song or something. The riffs are there though so I’m not taking points off of the song itself but just the poorly placed title that interrupts the overall aesthetic created here. The menacing swamp blues of “Scales on Crow” is a slow, slithering beast complete with vocals recorded after a hard night on the whiskey bottle. It is a dirty track that once again has a weird tinge of the bluesier noise-rock out there. The crawling pace is shaken up with great outbursts of noise to make for a very bayou friendly track.

The surging stomp of “Steel Horse Blues (The Plight)” makes good on bringing you plenty of crushing riffs but somehow loses steam a little along the way. It is not a bad track per say but doesn’t stick out like the rest of the material presented thus far. It never really hits a big stride like the previous songs. That is a similar problem I found in the immediately following “March of the Dugong”. The intro is just too stuttered, almost feeling like a half-cooked metal breakdown. Its heavy but the vocals don’t flow well with the girth of the riffs. It just feels off. This song does pick up later with a strong second half the sees the band working with their moodier flair once again including some oppressive clean instrumentation that gives you a sense that something pretty dangerous is lurking just beyond the horizon. The metal ending provides the perfect resolution for this song and brings things back into full swing before the monstrous closing of “Iron Whale”. This song sounds like a more doom injected version of Mastodon. It has massive riffs and strong singing vocals that shift and change many times throughout. There is so much going on in the course of the song but Dead Man’s Root manages to keep it interesting for the entirety of its 11:04. The ending of this song is almost straight-out of Mastodon’s playbook with show-stopping riffs that give way to a gentle acoustic finish that made me collect my jaw from the floor on more than one instance.

This is a very nice debut all around. There are some unrefined portions here and there that don’t always equate to musical gold but the majority of these 7 tracks are damn strong for sure. In the future my only suggestions would be to strengthen the singing in certain parts, drop a bit of the riffing found in “Steel Horse Blues” and “March of the Dugong” and just fix a minor thing here or there. Hell, really my only issues come from those two songs and just a minor quibble here and there. So the bottom line here is that this is an album certainly worth a check as long as you keep in mind this is a young band with obvious room to grow as time progresses. The good thing is that they cooked up a damn good debut that shows a bright future on the horizon. A nice listen for doom fans that are savvy to the more metal influenced bands in the scene and don’t mind a pinch of noise-rock either. This disc is being officially distributed for US listeners by Oppressive Sound System Releases, so check out their store if you want to add a copy to your collection!