Roareth: Acts I-VI

Roareth are a new sludge/doom metal act from Washington, who have unleashed a six act, one track album simply titles Acts I-VI. The four piece consists of Aaron Edge and Pam Sternin on guitars alongside Rachel Lynch on bass and drumming singer Ben McIsaac. Pigeon holing the Roareth sound is not completely straight forward as they range from huge slabs of guitar, to slow drones of sludge and almost everything in between. With the album being presented as one 45 minute track, obviously the intention of Roareth is for the listener to approach the album as one single piece of music. The six tracks all blend into one another and in this day and age of instant gratification and "tracks" as opposed to albums; it is an unusual and possibly risky strategy. There is definitely no way of dipping in and out of this disc, either in the sense of "skipping" to desired points, or actually understanding what is going on in the music, as the whole atmosphere and feel of the album comes from the slowly building tension, which is occasionally, but not often released.

For fans of this style of doom laden, winding metal, the torrent of slow and steady riffs will be a total joy, however as someone who will admit to dipping into and out of this genre, there are passages that just don't quite hold the interest. There's no denying the scope, or breadth of the work displayed here and the intensity that does rear it brutal head from time to time can be quite jaw dropping. However the long passages of drone that comprise much of Acts V and VI loses much of the momentum the rest of the disc had constructed.

As debuts go, there is a huge amount of potential demonstrated here, although as with many first albums, a little more focus would raise Roareth's maiden release to much loftier status. That said they are still well worth keeping an eye on.

Track Listing
1. Acts I-VI

Added: September 14th 2010
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Roareth MySpace
Hits: 2130
Language: english

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