Album review: Taproot – Sc/Ssrs

By DAN SOUTHALL

IF, like me, you are now old enough to look back on the strange musical period of the mid-nineties to mid-00s, there was a lot of strange or interesting output as well as some great to mediocre bands. Taproot and their brand of alt-metal settle in the middle somewhere, originally destined for greatness before separating themselves from everything ‘nu’ and releasing their best album,  Blu-Sky Research, then slowly but certainly being beaten down by middling releases and record label drama that eventually sent the band to hiatus.

Now, as everything ‘nu’ and alt begins to experience a surge in popularity, Taproot are back for another bite of the musical apple with an album 10 years in the making and hopefully, to remind listeners old and new how good they can be.

Ensuring you remember the era this band first endured, the horribly misspelt ‘V\P (V\Ct\M Pl\Y)’ kicks things off as though they never left, with their loud-soft dynamic and vocalist Stephen Richards nasal tone ratcheting up the intensity towards the middle of the track before settling back into middle of the road territory.

Follow up “Favourite Song” increases the melody and ear worms that Taproot originally built their stock on, with a hummable bridge section that is sure to keep the listener coming back to the beginning of the album. So, no big changes to the bands musical formula then, really.

Not completely true, as they try a few things in the name of musical growth, such as the forlorn “Love Without You” or the Deftones-esque “Sacred Together”, and the heartbreaking lyrical contents of “Ma” as the vocalist laments the loss of his mother. These are all small changes in the grand scale, but they help to keep the band and their music relevant. The biggest issue for them is that they were always a ‘take or leave’ type of musical prospect, something that will continue to haunt them.

Get SC/SSRS on CD