The Rock Blogger

Rosetta. The Galilean Satellites. 2005. 3.5 stars.

Tired and hung-over on a Monday morning, you need some serious music to kick your ass a little - or conversely, to match your hazy and detached state of mind. Luckily, the post-metal tangents of Rosetta satisfy both those criteria, playing intense jams that are both aggressive and spacey. Anyone familiar with the tone and atmosphere of Isis, Neurosis or Pelican will find comfort in the stratospheric wanderings of Rosetta.

While Rosetta are reminiscent of their art-metal peers, with their growling vocals and spaced-out passages, they still branch off into many different directions on this debut album, experiemnting with chilling samples and electronic effects. The level of complexity on these tracks is impressive, especially when you consider how recently this band has emerged on the scene. One of the most notable features of this release is the companion disc that can be played simultaneously with the first, creating a quadraphonic listening experience that delivers a punishing wall of sound. Listened to alone, this second disc is a series of drawn out ambient works, which while intriguing, never rises to the emotional peaks provided by Rosetta’s metal offerings.

As a whole, The Galilean Satellites lives up to the ”metal for astronauts” tagline often used for describing this surging movement in metal, revealing Rosetta’s experimental leanings, originality and emotional intensity. While I have yet to listen to last year’s Wake/Lift LP, I’m sure this debut is an indicator of the band’s promise. Perfectly suited for the somnambulist’s morning.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 10:06 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.