ProGGnosis
Resolution is the newest Root album and though I am only acquainted with the last two, it is already the 4th in the career of this project by English multi instrumentalist David Kendal.
Even if basically walking the same paths as its predecessor, Resolution shows itself to be a leap forward in terms of consistency and melodic accuracy. In fact, this double album is almost completely comprised of harmonious lines with a very delicate sense of beauty.
With the exception of the first half of the opening track - Jubal - and other occasional dives into more elaborate structures, Resolution is a clear demonstration of two basic principles that are lead by David:
The first principle is one of care. Care for the music that is created, for (for instance) most of the choruses are brilliantly textured, performed and entwined in the songs. Care for the way the guitar solos (sometimes a little dissonant) and especially the keyboard layers and solos are put in the mix. They are performed exactly when they were supposed to, for the music leads its way for them.
The second principle is that of intimacy. Intimacy between the music and the lyrics, between the emotional vocals and the meaning of the words. This is an album about hope, perception, perspective and resolution. All embraced in a shell of personal views and opinions. In sum, the sharing of inner thoughts and the way David reacts to the circumstances of life.
As extra bonus, you get a colourful, beautiful and eye-candy cover and booklet, where it is obvious that David takes his work very seriously to provide his listener (client) with a complete and enjoyable package. This booklet is really a feast to one’s eyes. Brilliantly done.
Closing arguments, Resolution takes you in a ride through calm, introspective landscapes, encapsulated in light progressive rock with a very modern touch (sometimes even a bit popish). The keyboard work is excellent and the vocals are also plotting to serve the listener a relaxing and pleasant voyage.
To those who like mild prog without the bond of extra complexity but flawlessly played, this comes highly recommended.
Nuno Published on: 28 Mar 2003 ProGGnosis
Rock Society
You've got to admire an individual who can put together a quality package like this himself.
Root is actually David Kendall, and he has produced here a new double album of excellent melodic progressive music. Resolution is a mammoth task too, not only is the album a double, but the quality of the music and production would put many bands with large financial backing to shame. David wrote all the songs, and sang and played all the parts, and managed to find the time to design and illustrate the impressive liner notes too!
Musically David is a very good guitarist and keyboard player, and as the other instruments sound good too he must be pretty impressive at those too. Quite how much technology is used in producing this I am unsure, but the overall effect works. The music is very much in the melodic rock area, with a lot of edge coming from the slightly rockier guitar sound.
He has a pleasant singing voice too, sometimes sounding slightly Beatlesish and at others perhaps a little more Squeeze. He manages to harmonise with himself as well. The songs vary in length from the four to five minute marks, to the title track a three-parter that clocks in at around the twenty-minute mark.
With few, if any, weak points I can recommend this to you prog lovers out there...it's great value for money.
Bernard Law Rock Society
Proglands
More than being excellent, I don't know really what it is going on with David... but I think that he is on his best here. "As the album grew, a sense of optimism took hold and it became obvious it would be my most ambitious project to date" say David, and this is absolutly true. "I believe that on this album I have moved more towards a defined 'ROOT' sound, obviously still influenced by the incredible musicians I have listened to over the years, but I am doing things my way". For myself it is absolutly his better recording until today, dont miss this fabulous work another time caming with a very nice artwork. It's a double CD at only 9:95, so it's a very good deal :-).
Denis_t 04/2003 Proglands.com, all rights reserved
DPRP
Every so often one comes across something that grabs the imagination, presses all the right buttons and clicks instantly into place. It happened to me on hearing Resolution the latest album by Root (aka David Kendall). With three prior albums to his name, David has pushed the boat out and produced a double album of unfaltering quality. Positioned within the realms of melodic progressive rock, the album is imbued with some very strong melodies which are often accompanied by wonderfully textured harmony vocals. David is both a competent keyboard player and a fine guitarist, taking his influences on such tracks as Equal and the three-part Resolution from Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. Further Floyd influences are heard on Falling which features a keyboard chord taken directly from Echoes. However, this is not to say that the music is in any way derivative, just that many of the songs have a familiar feel to them, a sure testament to the composing and arranging abilities of Mr. Kendall.
With slight rearrangement, Shine would make an excellent single, blessed as it is with a great chorus, while Welcome Glow has a Beatles feel to it. The title track is a well thought-out piece justifying it's 20-minute duration; indeed none of the long tracks on the album felt as if it had outstayed their welcome.
The lyrics are also worthy of mention, being a cut above a lot of the slap-dash rubbish that some bands think they can get away with. They meld seamlessly with the music forming another layer to the textures of the songs. They also follow a common theme, that of understanding, hope and ultimately, resolution.
It seems that the notion of forming a band with one's mates in order to create music is rapidly becoming a thing of the past as Root is another example of one man taking the solo concept to the extreme and doing absolutely everything - writing, playing, singing, promoting and even designing, illustrating and printing the very impressive CD booklet. Sure, modern technology has made it easier, and cheaper, for individuals to compose in relative isolation, but I have the ominous suspicion that the general state of the music industry and the lack of live venues in the UK has forced the hand of musicians somewhat in that maintaining a band is not economically viable these days. This is a real shame, as had David Kendall been born a couple of decades earlier I have no doubt that he would be packing out stadiums accompanied by a stellar cast of backing musicians while his albums racked up endless weeks in the charts.
For fans of melodic progressive music who have their pop sensibilities intact, you could do a lot worse than get hold of a copy of Resolution. At £9 (under 15 Euros!) for over 90 minutes of high quality music the album is also exceedingly good value for money!
Conclusion: 9 out of 10
Mark Hughes DPRP
The Startrips Show Translated by computer, so apologies for the broken english
The Root is a band of one face alone, David Kendall, that after some problems with the previous formations of the band it decided to opt to the one "Of it Yourself" and produced, composed, touched all the instruments and still of breaking the art of encarte drew all and obtained to launch this if room double album, that has received excellent critical in the world all.
David is an excellent tecladista guitarist and, and plays the other instruments well and also has a pleasant voice. The sound sufficiently has influence of Pink Floyd, Kansas, Rush, Dream Theater, Genesis and for it goes there. It is impossible not to notice the one that the "ghost" of David Gilmour is present in all the COMPACT DISC.
Musics are really very good, David obtains to balance its excellent technique with melodies very made and an extreme care with the production well. Musics as the floydiana "Equal", "Shine" with an excellent refrão, the epic "Resolution", the beautiful "Welcome Glow" and "Need" are some prominences of an album sufficiently balanced and coherent.
For the orphans of Pink Floyd, it can be an excellent option to try to give a possibility for the Root. I believe that with certainty they will not go to disappoint itself.
Por Guilherme Vignini The Startrips Show
CD Services
Amazingly enough, this is completely done by the one guy - everything - recording, mixing, producing, playing, singing, composing, making the tea, painting the studio - everything! He plays drums, synths, guitars, bass and keyboards without a fault, puts it all together so that it sounds like a band throughout and then sings on top with some rather fine, harmonious mid-range vocals.
Across a double CD of tracks from four to nearly twenty minutes long, you'll hear a remarkably self-assured, superb sounding, well produced slice of surging prog-rock, with some steaming work from lead guitars, synths and keyboards throughout what has to be said are some incredibly tight, fluid and inventive arrangements and compositions, a lot more complex than yer average prog-rock opus, that's for sure. It's quality stuff, even more remarkable for the fact that it's one bloke and still you can't quite believe it - talent or what!! If you like your prog on to cover a range from Moody Blues style harmonies though Flower Kings/Porcupine Tree style instrumental work to solid prog-rock rhythms, across compositions with feeling and warmth, this really is something you ought to try.
Andy G (CD Services)
ProgressiveWorld
Resolution is the fourth CD from Root and is a two disk set. Root is David Kendall - on vocals, drums, guitar, keys, etc. But this one man band creates a sound that has depth and contrasts - and harmonized vocals! - that you sometimes forget it's just one man. But, let's get the obvious out of the way right away - you will find that as a vocalist Kendall sounds uncannily like Steve Hogarth - in tone and in phrasing. And just to sew that up in a few sentences, if you were to take the mood and tenor of This Strange Engine, and especially "Memory Of Water" and the title track, but vary it a bit with other elements (that I'll talk about as we continue), you will have a pretty good handle on what to expect. Although you will find Marillion on Kendall's list of influences, aside from this comparison, you will not find that the music, which is often guitar centric (Kendall is mainly a guitarist), bears any other strong resemblances. (We had this same mode on the previous releasePoles Apart, by the way).
So, with this in mind, we get a trio of pieces that build on that mood: "Equal" has a dreamy arrangement, which creates a creamy background for the sharp and direct, yet languid, guitar solo. An economy of notes express a great deal of feeling, whether coming in rapid sequence or allowed to linger ... and you've been following my CD odyssey thus far, you know this just the kind of playing I love. It's the second track in, but I think it is where disc one really gets going.
The track that follows, "Motherhood," has classic feel - a touch of Alan Parson's Project "Time" but that may not necessarily be the first thing that comes to mind; here it's the drum and keyboards that make think of that; chiming guitar and vocals take it in a different, more lively direction (and not quite as dreamy). The poppier of three - pop in a very prog kind of way - is the lovely "Shine." It has a little more of a "sing-a-long" quality to it with a catchy chorus.
Also on Kendall's list of influences you will find Pink Floyd, and this comes to bear in the first part, "Pull You Down," of the three part title track. Acidic guitar phrases (which we also heard on the opening track "Jubal") create jagged eddies that mimic the drawing motion that the rest of the arrangement has. "Seven Sins" is more turbulent, harsher, and heavier - bass coming much more to the fore and keyboards receding in the mix (at least during the vocal sections). With the third part, we're back to the mid-tempo, mellow style of the other disc's piece, "The Fire" having much in common with "Shine," though not quite as bright and upbeat arrangement-wise.
Disc two is a continuation of disk one. Not that Kendall is repeating himself, per se. All pieces have a consistent and overall tone, making it feel like a concept album -- and the liner notes suggest that it is a broad sense, saying: "Dedicated to those we have lost - reminding us to make our live mean something." So, not so much concept as subtext, context.
This second disk seems more "acoustic" than the first disk, but given the soft focus of all the pieces, it's a fine distinction.This second disc begins with the epic "Change"- a fabulous guitar solo is what makes it so. Epic in the sense of size, not length... moving from very mellow and understated, to something vast, and very much in a classic mode. It's Marillion-like in construction, but not in sound. Acoustic guitar opens and closes the piece, joined by a breathy keyboard to end things. Oh, and there is also a very moody, atmospheric and spacey section to truly open the piece. It's organ that gets the solo spot on "Falling," with a dark yet bubbly tone (akin to... Ambrosia, maybe; not the churning style of Emerson). The moody, bluesy "Honesty" is much more like the middle pieces on the first disk, and mostly "Seven Sins" though not as turbulent, being more like "Shine" in it's epicy parts. And unlike elsewhere, we get a Hendrix-inspired acid-inflected guitar solo played with a bluesy swing. We've had acidic - fuzzed - leads elsewhere, but here they are a bit more precise, a bit more...acidic. This gives way to watery keyboards, tinkly, piano-like runs and sparse percussion. Pink Floyd gets another nod, here in the spacey, bubbly keyboard effects (think DSotM). Churning turbulence returns actually in "Flying Blind" - here I find the keyboards just a few pitches shy of shrill, but I've never been a fan of those ultra-silvery tones from anyone. Throaty guitar seems throatier in comparison. "Need" joins the other epic pieces, as it too has a big sound, rich and expansive. And the perfect way to end an album, as it has that "riding off into the sunset, triumphant" feel about it.
You can't help but like Root; there's nothing offensive or off putting - unless you have a problem with those Hogarth like vocals. Obviously, being the Marillioniac I am - at least have been in the past - you know I don't. Don't have a problem with them, I mean. Though, um, I'll grant that Kendall sounds like Hogarth, but not exactly, as I don't think he's quite as strong a vocalist. Because Kendall has such a "soft" and "understated" vocal tone, when he tries to sound a little more aggressive, it doesn't work as well as with the mellower pieces. Not that it doesn't work at all, just that it's the wrong kind of voice for that context. Incidentally, I do want to say that I don't think he's trying to sound like Hogarth, just that he naturally does.
But wow, what a guitarist. His playing throughout is the highlight and the reason to check this out. And unlike many do-it-all productions, Kendall does it all very well. If these are electronic drums, they don't sound it (another example of a well rounded "do-it-all"-er is Steve Unruh). But his guitar playing is stellar. Yes, it's all very mellow and dreamy and given a "soft focus," but it's an album you can get lost in, relax, and be transported...Oh yeh, Kendall also did all the album's artwork
© Copyright 2005 ProgressiveWorld.net
Reviewed by: Stephanie Sollow, December 2005 Released in 2003, Rating: 4/5
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