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Freeloader, Reviews

FREELOADER: DEREK RODDY’S SERPENTS RISE

 Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 1:30pm by

Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the debut release from Derek Roddy’s Serpents Rise.

It seems like only yesterday that MetalSucks posted the he said/he said account of journeyman drummer Derek Roddy’s departure from Today Is the Day. We know from Steve Austin’s marathon bitch session with Axl back in 2008 that the TITD frontman found Roddy to be a whiny, egomaniacal toolbag that hated his fans and only cared about money.

While I don’t know enough about Roddy to confirm or deny those accusations, the distribution plan for the long-awaited debut by his instrumental Serpents Rise project paints Roddy as a lot more fan-friendly than Austin’s criticisms would suggest. Roddy’s talked to the press about his intention to release the album for free since 2006, the same year he left Hate Eternal; he released a number of free demo tracks via his website in 2008, and followed through with a free finished product in late 2010. And he’s also up-front about involving fans in the project. Quoth the Rowdy Roddy on his website forum: “Serpents Rise….is an instrumental entity…But, this does not mean that we are opposed to hearing what vocal possibilities exist….Whether in your car, in your bedroom, on stage covering one of our songs, posting clips of you singing our tunes on YouTube OR….in the event that we show up in your town…..you sing with us on stage! Have fun…create!” Does that sound like the sentiment of an egomaniacal toolbag?

I say nay, and the album’s not a toolbag’s album, either. Musically, Serpents Rise serves up ripping, Hate Eternal-esque death metal without the relentlessness that makes Hate Eternal records so insurmountable. Five guitarists in total contributed (including some of Roddy’s buds from Divine Empire and The Deboning Method), and songs like “Intertwine” and “The Cataplexy Event” are as layered with dissonant riffing and wicked solos as that’d suggest. The guitars incorporate an arpeggio leitmotif into almost all of the heavy tracks, and there’s a Where’s Waldo? joy in hearing it permutate throughout the album. Background loops and effects turn “Invasive Swahngi” and “Signs of identity” into big moaning beasts of weird ambience. While Roddy ‘n Co. go overboard with three interludes tracks, and make some questionable textural decisions (does “Signs of Identity” – or any music – really benefit from that Jew’s harp?), it doesn’t do much to take away from the quality death metal underneath.

As you might have expected from a project helmed by a respected drum clinician, drumming is the main attrasction on Serpents Rise. Roddy logs plenty of his trademark blastbeat passages, but he’s also cleared out opportunities for percussive invention. There are subtleties to Roddy’s playing here that he hasn’t had a chance to display in his session work with Malevolent Creation, Nile or Today Is the Day. There’s a trick I’m still trying to figure out around the 2:40 mark in “Invasive Swanghi,” where Roddy seems to layer triplets over the existing double-time blastbeat current. He throws in all kinds of Indian percussion and frame drums, and invited two auxiliary percussionists (and a rattlesnake!) to add to the album’s rhythmic stew. It’s a treat to hear a guy this talented play whatever he wants. And for a top-flight death metal drummer, Roddy stays admirably restrained on Serpents Rise, focusing more on controlled invention than extravagant fills or solos.

The one major shortcoming of the project is the same quality that makes Roddy’s distribution plan so unique. There was so much time and thought put into Serpents Rise, from the seamless flow of the tracks to the thoughtful descriptions Roddy wrote to accompany them. But where a band like Blotted Science (another patron of Roddy’s talents) fully earned its instrumental status, there’s really nothing so unique about the songwriting on Serpents Rise, nothing that extravagant about the performances, that would eliminate the need for a human voice. The album offers plenty of ripping death metal – they’re harmonically and rhythmically dense, just begging for the focusing presence of a vocalist. Roddy’s annotations point to some cool metaphysical concepts he had in mind, so why not go all the way and translate them into lyrics? (Let’s all hope that Roddy’s got no intentions for a Limp Bizkit-style vocalist auditionin the future). As is, Serpents Rise is a set of quality backing tracks, just waiting for the right vocalist to tie it all together.

(3 out of 5 horns up)

-SO

Download Serpents Rise at Derek Roddy’s website.

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  • Rik

    This reminds me, Aurora Borealis recently released their new album for free download, so if blackened death is your kinda thing, check it out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Hackenberg/100000951264131 Ian Hackenberg

    best drummer ever!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dale-Sheaffer/100000842841276 Dale Sheaffer

      WOOHOOOOOO!!!!!! RODDYYYYYYYY

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Palmer/100001795482653 David Palmer

    I think Derek is a awesome drummer but hardly INVENTIVE enough to justify the hype that surrounds him. I think he is obscenely overrated. Thomas Haake > Roddy

    • Bastard

      Haake is a one trick pony, albeit one who is very good at what he does. Roddy has insane limb independence, speed to die for and does all those blasts with his wrists. Most struggle to hit those speeds with their fingers, while Roddy has more power than most could even dream of – not to mention that he’s crazily innovative: see the pattern mentioned in the review.

      He is not over-rated.

      • http://www.xbalanke.com Axolotl

        I do not think Roddy is overrated, but you are severely underrating Thomas Haake. His playing is deceptively simple on the surface but insanely complex.

        • Bastard

          Perhaps, but Haake has made a career out of the same trick. Fair play to him, but his playing’s not exactly subtle. I’m not consciously trying to play him down, as that trick is seriously fucking impressive, and he’s been able to pull rabbits out of hats like Bleed, but we’re talking about two very different approaches to drumming, suited to different kinds of music.

          • Wade Wiseman

            Wait, and Derek Roddy isn’t a one trick pony for playing Blasts in every single song? I think the moral of the story is that Gavin Harrison is the winner hear. He takes ever single interesting poly rhythm that Haake does but actually adds feel to it plus puts over 7/8 with like a triple feel on the ride. Not talking down Haake though because they guy is a monster and isn’t lifeless and expressionless like Roddy. Where is the substance?

          • Bastard

            Since I can’t reply to Wade’s post for some reason:

            A: Blasts in every song? Don’t be ridiculous, he played no blasts until he joined Malevolent Creation – you clearly haven’t seen his series of videos where he does none at all.

            B: Even if he does blast a lot – in a death metal band, shocking! – he’s probably the most interesting blasts out there. His use of a second snare and various footpedal-controlled extras for texture, cymbal fills, his left kick being tuned differently, his own use of polyrhythms, overlapping duplets and triplets and exceptional speed…

            Do you see where I’m going here? You’re absolutely talking out of your arse, do be quiet.

            “Where is the substance?”

            That is pretty fucking rich, considering I’ve been giving practical examples and all you can come back with is “OMG HE SO LIFELESS N FAST”. Be quiet now, dear.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Zach-Gates/14209777 Zach Gates

    Roddy is cool as shit. I’ve been a member of his message board for a while and he will ALWAYS help out anyone who asks. Not to mention he posts over on DrummerWorld as well!

    Doesn’t care about the fans? MY ASS he doesn’t.

  • johan

    Roddy is a great drummer and has a great drumming forum. He always posts and is not a douche in any way. He just knows that death metal is not a financially viable enterprise and that is why he left Hate Eternal in the first place, after getting about 500 dollars for a U.S. tour. A man cannot sustain himself on that and he is one of the best death metal drummers around, so he was for hire for the TITD project, and Austin did not hold up on his end. Roddy was being a session drummer essentially, and he knows his worth. He did not live in the area Austin is in and he needs money to live on. Being a metal musician sucks, because it typically means that you are not doing that as your day job, so you need to make a living somehow. Derek is the most honest when it comes to knowing about trying to make it playing metal and why it is unrealistic to try to do so, why do you think so many death metal bands tour in vans and not tour buses?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tanner-Hoffman/751940537 Tanner Hoffman

    Just wanted to say that I have met Roddy at a clinic, and even played his kit. He is a SUPER nice guy and willing to help out with a lot of stuff.

  • Valex

    there both incredible drummers..but Kollias own them both

  • http://www.myspace.com/thedaisyanthesis arby

    Can’t wait to listen, been waiting for this one for a while!
    Solid review, I think I’ve heard most of these tracks on that DVD he put out a while back.

    About the no vocal thing. I remember hearing him talk about it (it might have been on his latest DVD) and he was saying the no vocal thing was a way to make death metal more accessible to non death metal listeners. As we all know, it’s a great genre full of dynamic and potential, but many people don’t see it as such and have little respect for it. The main thing that gets in the way for these people is the vocals, so Serpents Rise is a way for people like that to be able to appreciate death metal for the music, if the vocals are too much for them.