Customer Reviews

Rodentia : The Best of Dark Roots Music

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For those unfamiliar with the genre of "gothic americana" this is the perfect starting point. Imagine Nick Cave or Tom Waits playing banjos; dark lyrics and darker music with a rustic backdrop. Finding new artist is the best part fo this album. Sleepy Eyes Nelson, Uncle Sinner, The Dad Horse Experience, and Oldboy are a few bands that were unreleased before being on the album. If you like any artist on this album, pick it up and you are going to find 33 more that you love!

This is the most definitive collection of gothic-americana/dark-folk/alt-country music I've ever found. It has just about every great band within the genre, with only a few noticeable absences (Will Whitmore, Slim Cessna, Woven Hand)

The first cd starts with a dark, foreboding song from one of my favorites, Strawfoot, which sets an ominous tone for the rest of the CD.

Some of the other standout tracks for me were Adelita by O' Death, Plague of Frogs by Creech Holler, Graveyard Polka by Damn Laser Vampires and Dark Horse by Tarantella.

Really, there's not a bad song on the track, from Reverend Glasseye and the Monads to the Scarring Party and Walter Sickert.

I mean, really. All the heavy hitters of this burgeoning scene are here.

If you aren't already a devoted apostle of the goth-am sound, this is the perfect primer for you, and if you are a fan, this is the most definitive piece you could ever hope to add to your collection.

Having recently walked the bridge from old school Country & Blues, such as Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Elmore James on over to the darker and more experimental side of roots music and americana, I can say that this particular album has only increased my newfound taste for it. I was already a big fan of Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Reverend Glasseye, O'Death, and Strawfoot, but I have now been introduced to a number of other bands and singer/songwriters of this genre. Almost all of the bands and singer/songwriters listed in this record are said to be giants of this style of music, and after a single listen to it in its entirety one can easily see why.

It isn't difficult to understand why music fans are harkening back to a period of music that was well before their time, trying to realize its birth and the years that followed, as well as embrace the new bands and singer/songwriters who have carried on where the old masters left off. Dark Roots, or Gothic Americana as some call it, is a genre that I intend to follow for a long time to come.

Check out the article I wrote for the Philadelphia Examiner on Rodentia: The Best of Dark Roots Music.

Of course, since Amazon doesn't allow direct links from unauthorized outside sources, just read between the lines and you can make it work.

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Strongly recommended.

Rodentia: the Best of Dark Roots Music is a dark and jangly trip through americana/goth-country music. Some songs get a little bit too bluegrass sounding for my tastes, but almost all of the songs are dark and/or creepy in subject matter which I like. This cd makes me think of hellfire preachers, crop circles and dark highways passing by towns where something unclean is just out of sight. I was familiar with O'Death and Rev. Glasseye and wanted to hear some other artists in the same genre. Not all the songs are winners, but with two discs it's worth the price.