Rook Road completing their quadrilogy of video singles with Paradox!
03.11.2022The power of slow progression
Rook Road are presenting the fourth and last video single on the way to releasing their self-titled album. Four songs have been selected wisely in order to make a point: Diversity is rock’n’roll’s joker in the deck, and probably the true reason why, after so many decades, the strings, percussions, keys and beefy voices still culminate in sweat. Today, heavy rock is as much a force to reckon with as it’s always been and – most likely – will always be.
Four songs, four corners of a box that holds the united legacy of generations. The beauty of complexity; a blow to the jaw set to music; the wide screen showing an epic ballad of love and sacrifice. And now Paradox – a masterfully executed ceremony of opposites on the musical spectrum,and a clear message sung with tremendous devotion and great tonal range. The straight and powerful song is propelled by a simple yet effective bass run that carries an almost dreamy interplay of guitar and organ. It crescendos and decays back and forth like a heavily breathing lung, a pulsating heart: The inscrutably melancholic swansong is pumping its message into the listener’s mind. “Paradox is our farewell to the ethical values that used to contribute to all our individual life paths so greatly,” the band explains. “An expression of the tug we feel – surrounded by all the folks who hunt after every trend in a social media circle jerk that’s inflating to a giant bubble of nonsense. This bubble won’t collapse at once, it just spits people back out. Broken and half-digested, they realize the trends were hunting them, not the other way ‘round.”
The grande finale in this quadrilogy of songs asks for a great crescendo of course, and Paradox delivers in an unforgettable way, putting the mighty Hammond organ right up there against the soloing guitar once more. Fans of Uriah Heep will share the love that bleeds out of every note in the resulting Hammond solo.
Paradox is the fourth and final video single of Rook Roads upcoming self-titled album that will be released on November 11th, 2022 via SAOL and is now available for pre-order: https://orcd.co/rookroad1
The song lines up next to their third single Sometimes, a piece in the vein of a pure, classic rock ballad, evoking the affecting impressions of devotion, love and self-sacrifice while forgoing unnecessary kitsch or squiggles but showing a lot of soul instead.
The band’s second single Talk Too Much is the prime example of a gripping hook blowing right in your face without further ado, a true power rocker even by Rook Road’s standards: “The song is about windbags who talk much and say nothing – only to obscure what’s been written all over their faces: an abyss of ignorance”. Kinda Glow, which marked the first sign of the new album, is a rather complex song that deals with revolution while encouraging standing up for yourself and listening to your own needs instead of following others blindly, giving listeners something real and tangible to feel.