Root Zero
Dark Rainbow
Self-Released
After winning themselves a coveted place at last year’s Bloodstock festival and wooing a large crowd on the New Blood stage, Welsh rockers Root Zero quickly return with their debut album Dark Rainbow. The buzz and momentum the band have built means this eleven tracker comes with a weight of expectation but if the pressure’s on, it doesn’t show. This is an assured effort which paints its sound from a wide palette and stops at all points along the musical spectrum from heavenly, ethereal moments to crushing, hellish, heavy metal (and often within the same song). With Soundgarden and Katatonia cited as influences, Root Zero are progressive in its purest definition; with neat time changes and subtle sonic manipulation, there’s a feeling that the band are prodding at sonic boundaries to see just how far they can push things. It’s an exploration that doesn’t forsake important stuff like melody and song structure and means that when the band unleash the epic title-track and equally elongated closer ‘The Infection’, things never feel fussy or forced. With their cinematic sound and growing reputation as a formidable live act, Root Zero are on an upward curve and at the end of this Dark Rainbow is a bright future.
Review by Peter Dennis.