Among the Rocks and Roots - Pariah

Angry Metal Guy

Some albums need a particular reviewer to get the appreciation they deserve. A reviewer who connects with, and is able to extol virtues of, the record, like a preacher patiently explaining some of the finer tenets of an obscure religion to the untrve masses. Roquentin was the man that Richmond duo Among the Rocks and Roots’ sophomore album, Raga, deserved. And needed, frankly. On other occasions, an album lands itself a reviewer who is spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with it. AtRaR’s third album, Pariah, is that record and I am that man. Knowing only that Raga scored a 4.0 and that Roqqy is on a permanent, entirely non-suspicious sabbatical, I stepped up, feeling that Pariah needed reviewing. I still feel that but I also now feel that it should have been reviewed by someone else. I expect AtRaR may feel the same if they read this.

The first thing to understand about Pariah¹ is that it comprises only four compositions and yet clocks in at just over an hour and a half in length. Like its predecessors, with which I belatedly acquainted myself, this is an album for which structure is an abstract and distant concept. Drawing on post-hardcore, noise, drone, elements of jazz, and more, AtRaR explore semi-free form compositions, relying as heavily on hypnotic repetition as they do shifts in style and tempo. The concluding part of a trilogy that has explored the battle to conquer addiction, Pariah fairly seethes with an unstable anger. Far from coming to terms with life or reaching inner peace, AtRaR seems to glare at the world, baring its teeth.

Pariah by Among The Rocks And Roots

Mesmerizing percussion and distorted bass lines form the spine of the record, over which rage the bellowed post-hardcore vox. A grimy, gritty blend of early Swans and Primitive Man, with some of the harsh unpredictability of Duma, Pariah rails against racism, white supremacy, and inequality (“Triumph”), as much as it paints the self-loathing of, and inner strength needed to beat, addiction (“III”). Passages of relative calm, like the contemplative, almost mournful strings introduced around 14 minutes into the title track, serve both to give much-needed breathing space and to enhance the stripped-back noise that bookends them. Devoid of breathers, mercy, or respite, “III” sees AtRaR at their rawest. The dual vocals, operating almost in call-and-response style in places, are propelled forward by d-beat drumming and thudding bass, which reaches a weird kind of groove around the 9-minute mark, feeling unstoppable. Although quieter musically, “Triumph” is by far the most uncomfortable thing on Pariah. Relying as much on unsettling static-laden electronica, and mesmerizing drumming as it does anything else, “Triumph” is built around the increasingly fraught audio from a police stop, which arrives at about the halfway point, with the balance of music and samples each serving to heighten the tension of the other.

Closing track “Love” initially offers up a sense of peace and melody not seen anywhere else on Pariah, with acoustic guitar work that could have come straight off ROSK’s Remnants, to which synths and strings are added, alongside clean female vocals. However, the layers gradually build, as more and more percussion is added, alongside squealing synths, electronica, and deliberately disharmonious vocals, making for a half-hour-plus aural soundscape that is very hard to put into words. Unusually for an album like Pariah, it is Abdul Hakim Bilal’s bass which, for me, is the star of the show. When it’s there, it gives energy, groove, drive, and a semblance of structure to the record, when it’s not there, I want it back. AtRaR has a raw, vitriolic feel to it, which the vocals, a joint effort between Hakim Bilal and co-conspirator Samuel Goff, play to, even in the slower, insistent passages of “Love” and “Pariah.” This sense is deliberately enhanced by the production, which feels claustrophobic and oppressive: each time closer “Love” crashes to its conclusion, I feel like a weight is lifted off.

Roquentin described Raga as a “manifestly real album.” The same can be said of Pariah. Exhausting and often deeply uncomfortable listening, you feel AtRaR. However, unless you are willing to focus and dedicate yourself to this record, there is absolutely no point in listening to Pariah. While I got a lot more out of this record than I expected, I cannot sustain the concentration (nor slip into a receptive catatonic state) long enough to take in everything this record is in a single sitting. Whether this is my fault or the record’s (I can’t help but feel the latter), others can decide. How then to score, or even describe, Among the Rocks and Roots’ Pariah … a deeply unsettling, chaotically emotive, exhaustingly overlong triumph? Maybe?

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Cacophonous Revival Recordings
Websites: amongtherocksandroots.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/amongtherocksandroots
Releases Worldwide: December 8th, 2023

The post Among the Rocks and Roots – Pariah Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

The Quietus

Heavy music is easy. The right equipment and tuning, augmented with a few pedals and effects, can create such walls of sound to make even the most seasoned of extreme music lovers cower in pain. From black metal and grindcore to industrial and power electronics, music that’s shocking and transgressive just for the sake of it has been done to death. However, a masterful undertaking is to make that heaviness resonate with the psyche, to establish a feedback loop where each scream, bout of distortion, downtuned guitar grunt, and drum pattern tugs at something deep in the soul.

2015’s Samudra Garba Pathe and 2018’s Raga by Richmond, Virginia duo Among The Rocks And Roots (or Samuel Goff and Abdul-Hakim Bilal) were radical expressions of this method, the immense pillars of drums and bass guitar noise eclipsed only by their agonising emotional blows. Pariah, the closing chapter of this trilogy, is equally transcendent.

For the past five years, Goff and Bilal have been active in various projects in Richmond’s flourishing avant music scene, touching upon everything from the rawest punk to the most pensive ambient. Goff kept himself busy with free jazz and noise improv collaborations that resulted in two excellent records, 2021’s The End Of The World...Finally with Mariam Rezaei and last month’s Diminished Borders with Camila Nebbia and Patrick Shiroishi. Aside from several solo albums under the monikers Grey Wulf and Shame, each exploring a starkly different facet of his musical persona, Bilal can also be heard playing on Armand Hammer’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips. Together, they are both core members of the mercurial RAIC (Richmond Avant Improv Collective). The subtle influences of these collaborations are noticeable on Among The Rocks And Roots’ new album.

In contrast to Raga’s relentless, visceral onslaught, Pariah is a significantly more sprawling affair that still maintains a compelling power of affect amid its face-off with addiction, systemic oppression, and injustice. With a 90-minute run spread over four cuts, the music ebbs and flows between rough hardcore aggression and moments of rapture. ‘Pariah’ opens the album with droning vibrations that soon explode into a ritualistic clang, then continues switching gears from atmospheric segments to grovelling barrages. “Forgive but not forget” These words are repeated with obsessive conviction, only for their sizzling anger to get drowned out by the fluid motion of strings and an utterly stirring, overpowering crescendo of saxophones.

‘Triumph’ simmers in post-metal, Isis-like modes for most of its duration, before finding itself encased in musique concrète, with electronic effects overlapping fiery cries of protest that ultimately disappear into a dusty drone. There is neither place nor need for abstraction in the lyrics. “Rise up to abolish this system, rise up to bring those demons down,” they growl, imbuing the words with immense power.

Unlike the previous two cuts, the gruelling ‘III’ leaves Bilal and Goff alone with each other and their instruments, locked in a riveting dialogue of polyrhythms and riffs sheathed with distortion. Meanwhile, ‘Love’ provides a deserving closer for Among The Rocks And Roots’ harrowing trilogy. The piece is full of hair-rising moments such as the gentle, folksy intro, delirious, mantra-like chants, and swirls of dissonant strings, but ends by gesturing towards an uncertain, anxious state of mind. “Will you miss me when I’m gone?” We hear these words over and over again, delivered with a mixture of hostility and despair, until they are left bare and alone, as if stressing the thin line between love and hate.

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