ROOT! - Surface Paradise (Album)

I don’t consider myself “hard to please”. Wait, that’s a lie. A bold-faced one. Lots of music finds its way to my desk every week and I usually give most of it a listen. Sometimes it finds its way to my iTunes and I manage to- dare I say- enjoy it. Usually, though, it is everything I have heard before and then some. Alright, so I’m not hard to please; I’m a cynical fucker with deeply rooted tastes and a fish out of water brain (literally- you know, flipping about the place?- and figuratively)

But ROOT! satisfy my criterion for musical enjoyment. The album opens with Surface Paradise 5, 18, 35, 36, 47, 92, that is, itself a mish-mash of radio static and surf-punk riffage. Hello, keyboard, nice to see you again. Nice fervent, ivory-assailing keys sail over Henri Root’s fuzzy guitar sounds, eventually spilling into Surface Paradise 13 (don’t worry, they’re not all named variants of the album title)

13 begins with a DC mantra (“It’s not soul, it’s solipsism”, the intelligent adaptation of the Killers’ refrain, “I got soul but I’m not a soldier”) which makes me laugh every time because, well, what the fuck are the Killers talking about? Anyway, 13 has a deceptively funky beat- steering clear away from the band’s usual country/rock and roll avenue- which is a good thing, to be diverse, I mean.

In true ROOT-style, though: one of DC’s prototypical monologues. His smooth, unmistakeable voice championing wit and decorum in the kind of society that embraces vacuousness and lowest-common-denominator television (I mean, come on; what sane person allows Paris Hilton to live, let alone give us all televisual Hep C?). Don’t think that DC, for those who have not experienced ROOT! in all their rock and roll earnestness, is a negative, despairing character; no, no Leonard Cohen be he. DC handles these ooky social issues with sharp humour and Wildean sarcasm. You’ll laugh, and probably agree, rather than become a despondent mope-ster.

My Other Bumper Sticker is Intelligent continues DC’s penchant for socially-aware lyrical addresses, as he shouts such modern-day buzzwords like “Random”, “Jager” and “Ringtone” over jagged rock riffs; the refrain sounding like a trip down Sydney Road on a Saturday night: “Whatchu lookin’ at me for? Don’t be smart!” which, laugh though we will, is scaringly accurate.

That phrase, if I may divert off track, as I do, for a mo, has always baffled me; “Don’t be smart” is a shortening of the oft-garbled “Don’t be a smart-arse” and, you know, I don’t know what they are expecting upon requesting such. Can I turn off my intelligence? It may be easy for you, sir, but I don’t consider “smart” to be a negative in the same way other such slurs you have shouted hence are... “Bitch” and “slut”, yes, but not “smart”. “Smart” is what keeps me from ploughing a Skyline into a pedestrian at 150 down a suburban road or chugging Jagerbooooombs before beating up an innocent in a junk food eatery. Gosh, let us digress before I pop something.

(Sort of) Emo is a live favourite; the chugging of the opening guitar dirge leading into DC’s shameful admittance of getting “just a little bit...you know, sort of...emo”. The Ronettes-esque Famous for Being Famous for Being Famous is a pleasant lead-in to Orange People (the fake tan-kind, not the Wonka kind) which, with its rockin’ chorus of “Woah yeah...woah yeah...here come the Orange People”, is certainly more effective live, but we shan’t penalise, because the lyric “Orange people in the corporate world, climbing up the ladder...doin’ coke but looking more like Fanta” will always make me giggle.

Standout for me is Crown Tower Blues with its honky-tonk piano and rapier wordplay. It shows off DC’s clear singing ability better than the rest of the album, rather than his caustic bellows and be-warned soliloquies. Lyrics like: “These people here, they treat me fine/ They bring me beer, they bring me wine/ I’m going back, to my family/ I left them somewhere/ Carpark Level three” lead into the Hokie-Pokie refrain that must be heard to be enjoyed, rather than haplessly transcribed in a review. But ten points for the use of “foreclosed mortgage-y”.

Another live favourite is the poseur protagonist singing in the hard rockin’ I Hang Out with the Guys in Jet (‘s Uncle) with the boys pumping out punching riffs and kicks while DC asks, “Don’t you know who I am??”.

Home?, a newbie, brings some horns and boxy beats to the play- as well as freaking me the hell out: I has been listening to this in my office the Friday I’d bought it and found the lyric “You’re in the office, it’s 5:33” frightening, considering I’d looked at the clock displaying 5:33 at that exact moment...Arrgh- while I Fought the Groove Police reinforces some spiky guitar and head-nodding drumming the likes of which many bands, with god bless ‘em gusto, overdo.

Groove Police in the live sense usually includes DC conducting his rock sermons from within the crowd or atop the bar; the guy earns his money (whatever money musicians make these days) Groove Police, while remaining fun and rock and roll as hell, addresses the difficulty in being...what would you call it...uncool, that dirty word. Within the track you’ll find some of DC’s best lyrical firebombs like:

“I fought the Groove Police just by being around, just by being a certain age, by having a certain sound/ Or wearing a certain tie, before certain ties came back/ For Those About to Rock when everyone is Back in Black/ You never meet the Groove Police, they don’t come round to yours/ To sneer at your prog records, whilst championing Sigur Ros”

Or:

“I know I’m in your gun sight, I’m odds on to lose/ I could have Gandhi’s insight; British India is what you’ll choose”

ROOT! may not be on Video Hits; they don’t have a Pitchfork-approved review tacked to their MySpace; they certainly don’t have flopsy fringes and needle-thin black jeans to boost their marketability. But, my friends, they have my vote for 2009 Album of the Year. Could Short Stack / Kisschasy/ British Butterfly Tokyo ever be my contender for any awards of this magnitude?

http://www.myspace.com/rootthemusic

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