Siena Root – Revelation
Release Date: 24th February 2023
Label: Atomic Fire Records
Bandcamp
Genre: 60s/70s Psychedelic Rock, Folk Rock.
FFO: Wucan, Kadavar, Blues Pills, Colour Haze, The Vintage Caravan.
Review By: Mark Waight
With a career spanning over twenty years, Swedish Rockers Siena Root have always experimented with many different sounds in their mission goal to always find something a little bit different. Revelation is no exception to this quest with a bittersweet blend of hard rock, heavy psychedelic riffs, acoustic folk music, mesmerising rhythms and beautiful vocals all set to the harsh backdrop of a northern wilderness. Siena Root themselves claim Revelation is their most versatile work to date, and I tend to agree with them.
Siena Root is Zubaida Solid (vocals, organ), Sam Riffer (bass, vocals), Johan Borgstrom (guitar, vocals) and Love Forseberg (drums, vocals).
Coincidence and Fate is a super sweet opener that echoes back to those early days of hard rock, with some cool bluesy guitar riffs that enhance a very chilled out soundtrack. Professional Procrastinator is a much faster, heavier bass tune where the psychedelic sound waves come thick and fast. Far out man!
No Peace cranks up the hard-hitting bass which resonates through your whole body, whilst the vocals are gloriously soulful in their delivery. Slowly paced, Fighting Gravity, hits a real groove with some beautifully deft Santana style guitar playing giving it a rhythmical Latino flavour. Whereas Dusty Roads has a touch of Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi crossed with Jethro Tull about it. The vocals are absolute perfection!
Winter Solstice is much more of a folk-rock number with the flute and acoustic guitar providing the theme, the vocals are softer and more melancholy. The traditional folk theme continues with instrumental track Dalecarlia Stroll, although this time the flute is accompanied by an organ as we build to a heavy finale.
Leaving the City is a chanted musical journey with an Eastern spice flavour running right through it. Woodstock sprang into my mind when I first listened to Little Burden, it has festival song written all over it.
Instrumental track Madukhauns conjures up images of India and lost souls searching for spiritual enlightenment in the temples of the east, whilst still maintaining a western thread.
Final track, Keeper of the Flame, is my personal favourite off the entire album. It is both musically and vocally stunning, with an intense and slow burning pace that heats up to an emotional rollercoaster finish that leaves you thinking wow!
Revelation by Siena Root is a lovely journey back in time for anyone who yearns for the late 60s early 70s Flower Power movement days when the world was a much simpler place, and everything was groovy. Revelation is an album of two halves, the first being a true homage to those heavy psych sounds of the 60s/70s and the second being a tribute to the spiritual movement that followed it with the masses searching for truth and enlightenment. There is a very much a retro feel to the music scene at the moment, and Siena Root are right at the forefront of this lovely wave of nostalgia. Love and Peace, man!
(3.5 / 5)
