Arcane Roots: ‘Blood & Chemistry’ [Review]
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If you could make it past CERN’s security and replace the LHC’s put-upon particles with musical elements, this album would emerge in place of the Higgs Boson.
In the deeply respectable manner of scientific truth-seekers across the world, Arcane Roots are poking and prodding the Standard Model of Riff-Oriented Rock to root out its flaws and make it fit our modern, enlightened view of what music can be. This album is a reality-distorting display of technical genius and compositional prowess; Arcane Roots have quite obviously dedicated themselves to their craft, pushing every instrument to its limits with polyrhythmic riffs, undulating grooves, and frequent displays of flashy virtuosity.
But that’s not to say this is some wanky album born of unrestrained egotism – on the contrary, there are plenty of moments of Zenlike peacefulness and catchy choruses (single track Slow being a perfect example) to keep Blood and Chemistry on the right side of the “showy for the sake of it” line. All in all, Blood and Chemistry is the kind of stunningly forward-thinking experience that we all sorely need in an age of endless retromania.
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