21st November 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
Nova Scotia’s Rootabagga describe themselves as a ‘weird wiggle rock band’. I have absolutely no idea what that means. It’s not a genre. Is it? No… it’s not. Unless you count the song by Willie Mitchell as a template. ‘Meatball Subwoofer’ suggests not. But it turns out it’s a pretty apt description of this mangled math-rock, that sits somewhere between Queens of the Stone Age and Butthole Surfers, being demented drawling stoner rock, only with a nagging technical aspect with busy guitarlines tripping over one another all over – and then it goes ever more crackers, with full-throated shouty guttural vocals and there’s a dash of Dillinger Escape Plan going on… but ultimately, this is completely deranged.
A quick flick through their previous releases on Bandcamp – all standalone singles apart from their debut release, an album entitled Abbi Normal, which came out in the summer of 2020 – confirms that this is entirely representative of their output, and reveals something of a fixation with monsters and mythical creatures, not to mention some rap-rock / nu-metal leanings, which makes for an even more bewildering mélange.
I think it works. At least, most of it. No, it does. For all of its perverse outlandishness and oddity, ‘Meatball Subwoofer’ has a fairly conventional verse / chorus / bridge structure, only with some additional wibbly bits tossed in here and there – which is perhaps what they mean by ‘wriggle rock’. And then there’s the last forty-five seconds or so when it crashes down into the most brutal metal.
Very much one for fans of music that doesn’t conform and aren’t troubled by being addled and bewildered by a sonic bombardment of uncategorisable stylistic content.
AA
Aural Aggravation 