Albums

Taproot - Blue Sky Research

Sam Wetherell 15/08/2005

Rating: 1/5

I haven't listened to this album yet. Its sitting on my desk taunting me somewhat. When I was 14 I used to like Taproot, I know its hard to believe but your “indier than thou” sound correspondent once got off on that stuff. Taproot, as you may have guessed, are an ugly as sin nu-metal band, with an ugly as sin name. From what I remember they indulged heavily in high-pitched “on-the-train-home-from-two-years-in-Belsan-and-feeling-a-bit-glum” vocals, corwering beneath a limited number of chords that sounded like they were being slashed with a pen-knife. Me and Taproot lost touch needless to say, forever I thought. However, through some sudden twinge of cosmic interplay our paths have crossed once more. Taproot and me, me and Taproot. I press play.

Doubtless to say, its terrible. The “loud” bits are too loud, with Steven Richard's voicebox blistering awkwardly under the strain of countless aggressive and unnecessary screams. The “quiet” bits are too quiet, with vocals that are disgustingly clean and sodden with forced emotion. The loud bits are sprayed liberally with words randomly selected from the encyclopaedia nu-metalitca, “stabbing hate infectious needles” (I Will not Fall for You), “you're the one sent to kill me” (Facepeeler). Grammer, adverbs, and pauses for breath are all sacrificed to cram as many of these nasty verbs and nouns into the shortest period of time. For the quiet bits, they have mined Rodger's Emosaurus with scholarly precision (note the rather brilliant grammatical irregularities) - “Every single thought of you amazes me” (Promise), “Nothing earned like what I've got” (She).

The guitar has that nu-metal drone, which wavers slightly in pitch but does fuck all else, if they have a bass player then he evidently took a fifty-one minute bathroom break just at the wrong time. But stop myself coming back to the lyrics. Over and over again trite epigrams about things like “falling” - “I will not fall for you”, “You're subject to falling, but I can't save you”, “the truth is falling…” reoccur. Listening to things “You're calling but I can't hear you”, “I scream by no ones listening”, “I'm not listening anymore” is also a popular theme. Its meaningless, superficial gobshite, and artists cannot get away with putting this little effort into their song writing. I leave the best two examples for last:

“I'm alone again, cause I'm alone again”

“If faith were an 800 number/I'd disconnect myself”

BEEEEEEEEP.