Root is one of my favourite bands in this whole extreme metal field. They’ve always been a bit of an oddball difficult to slot band and it’s been that way pretty much from the start. I Hate have re-released two more albums by the band and first up is the band’s debut Zjeveni originally released in 1990.

Zjeveni  is mostly a compilation of the songs from The Trial demo from 1989 along with a bunch of other songs. While they made their first appearance along with the much heralded second wave of black metal, Root always owed more to the likes of Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer while always being just a little off kilter and chaotic. This album is mostly made up of chaotic thrash riffs, slight touches of black metal and the most over the top vocal performance from Big Boss. He would go on to get a lot more controlled and thought out with his vocals in later years but on this album it’s like he’s literally experimenting with everything he can do.

The album starts off with a lesson from the Statanic Bible recited in Czech and immediately goes into the title song which could have been a slowed down Venom song except for Big Boss’s thunderous vocals. Vyslech is short sharp and sounds like it could be on The Return apart from the weird noises that pop up while elsewhere on the album Upaleni and Cesta Zkazy both benefit from changing tempos and a twisted sense of songwriting.

The band owes quite a bit to the first three Bathory albums I think and while managing to be original pretty much right from the start; they had yet to really harness their skills. Still, for fans of the band Zjeveni is quite essential. The band would go on to far greater things in the years ahead but their debut is still worth a listen for some raw and quite unique extreme metal.

This re-issue comes with 5 bonus tracks including 3 live songs.

Label - I Hate

Year of Release - 2009