A simple and humble band from Philadelphia. A band fronted by a high school history teacher, who is also an avid skateboarder. A band that likes huge soundscapes, space rock, and screaming. When I heard all of this about Rosetta before actually receiving my copy of The Gallilean Satellites, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect out of the young band. This was one of my most anticipated CDs of the year to receive and upon getting it on Christmas Day, I couldn’t have been happier. With a gorgeous slip cover designed by Aaron Turner (of ISIS fame), song titles in French, a running time of approximately 118 minutes, and a simple inscription of “These songs are about a space man” on the inside of said slipcover, I was still unsure of what to expect from this band.
After a single spin of both discs, my head hurt from the massive sounds that had come from my Shure canalphones. With the idea of this as an album about a space man and space, what did it all sound like in the first place? One word: huge. Huge, that’s it? Yeah, huge. Everything about this release is huge from the excellent production to the crunchy guitar riffs to the screamed vocals. The first disc of the two is what most people will consider the “meat” of the release given that it’s the disc with vocals, drums, extreme riffage and all that fun stuff. However, in my opinion, the second disc is what makes this release well above awesome. It’s a disc of five tracks of pure ambient experimentation that will not only try to take you somewhere, it will take you somewhere. When was the last time you can remember a metal band putting out ambient music that was trance-inducing? In fact, when was the last time a metal band put out an ambient album, devoid of anything metal? Anyway, enough about disc two.
The first disc is one gigantic soundscape from start to finish. Huge overamplified production, big drawn out riffs, vocals seemingly screamed at you from miles away, pronounced bass lines, and warbling mechanical spacy electronics. The lyrical content is about a friend of the band with a mental illness and it’s interesting how Mike Armine has tied this so closely to the core of this release. He relates his friend’s illness with being an astronaut (oh, how appropriate the liner note proved to be) and how astronauts get to go beyond this world to view and experience things beyond comprehension. I wish my copy of the album would have included liner notes containing the lyrics as I’m very interested in reading them out of context with the music.
Now I guess I should get into some of the musical aspects since this is a review of an album and not a review of the band. Musically, you’d never know Rosetta was only formed in 2003 and they recorded the entirety of TGS a mere year later. Sounding cohesive and this technically astute, with each member incorporating their own influences into the mix, seems to have been an easy feat for these guys. The bass lines and massive guitar riffs on the first disc are a massive and integral part of the music, especially bass. In most groups, the guitarist is usually the mainman leading the charge but with Rosetta, they’ve placed the bassist right in front with many songs hanging on each deep bass note to lead the song through. This is very apparent on track four of the first disc, entitled “Itinerant”. The bass is the single most prevalent object of this entire 16:14 song. Even at the 10:00 mark when the track begins to die down, the bass is still the most pronounced element. This gives me a very good feeling since there are very few bands which think that the bassist is a very core part of a band instead of just “that guy who can’t play a six stringer”.
If The Galilean Satellites is any indication of this band’s vision, there will be more giant soundscapes and lucid stories to come.
OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.rosettaband.com/
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