Hell Symphony saw Root first grasping the weirdness that they would fully embrace on later albums. Coming out in a climate that was dominated by the second wave of black metal and being Satanic in theme, Root were lumped into the black metal genre but they have always been a bit more than just black metal.

The album starts with Belzebub, an excellent black-thrash instrumental that goes from groovy thrash to all out German thrash speed to Bathory and Venom worship with enough melody and songwriting skill to keep things interesting. Other stand out tracks include the more overt mid paced black metal of Belial, the angular and noisy Astaroth where Big Boss first experiments with his baritone singing voice to startling effect and the superb The Prayers which sees the band at its atmospheric best. The sound I pretty much standard for the early 90s extreme metal scene with the drum sound being a bit dodgy but that’s the only real complaint with the sound. Big Boss’s vocals are still quite conventional and have not reached the epic feel of his later work. Overall, Hell Symphony sounds surprisingly good today and holds up well some 16 years after its original release.

Now, Hell Symphony is a good album. Make no mistake about that. It has 4-5 killer songs and the rest of the album is well above average. Having said that though, Root is a band that has improved on every album. They’ve progressed in the real sense of the word to a place where today, they are completely unique and oftentimes spectacular. In this context Hell Symphony pales when held up to the brilliance of the band’s more recent work.

This re-issue should hold great interest to fans of the band who don’t own this on CD. For people who have never heard this band before you should start from The Book .