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Album Reviews : Rosetta – Utopioid

By on September 12, 2017

When your band operates with minimal to no formal/structured vocals and lyrics, you’d better be damn good at creating an aura and an atmosphere with your music. And, six albums into their career, that is precisely what this post-rock juggernaut is.

Utopioid is a swirling, slowly but surely building musical journey of mindbending proportions. Starting out in ambient and low-key fashion with Amnion, this album rises and falls, ebbs and flows through so many shifts in tone and dynamics that it makes your head spin as you experience it. And it all works up towards the twin-barrelled finale of Qohelet and Intramodem, both of which kind of encapsulate the entire album in seven to eight minutes, building from minimalist beginnings to devastating climaxes.

However, for a true hypnotic musical experience, check out Hypnagogic, which is nine minutes of indescribable atmospherics, with dreamy, ethereal vocals floating above. It teases the ear of the listener, dangling the payoff carrot, as you think it will explode or mutate at any moment as many of the other tracks do, but it never actually does. Sheer genius, and arguably the album’s best track amidst the wall to wall quality.

Utopioid keeps you guessing, never allowing you to relax. The tension it creates and builds is beyond palpable, and after nine tracks and over an hour’s worth of this kaleidoscopic music you feel pleasantly exhausted, wrung out and exhilarated all at once.

This is the type of album that is only possible through the combining of five very unique talents and imaginations, where the sum created is infinitely greater than its individual parts. Check Utopioid out now, but make sure you give it several complete listens to allow it to fully weave its mesmerising spell over your mind. You will be forever glad you did.

Band: Rosetta
Album: Utopioid
Year: 2017
Genre: Post Rock
Label:  Independent
Origin: USA

About

Rod Whitfield is a Melbourne-based writer and retired musician who has been writing about music since 1995. He has worked for Team Rock, Beat Magazine, themusic.com.au, Heavy Mag, Mixdown, The Metal Forge, Metal Obsession and many others. He has written and published his memoirs of his life and times in the music biz, and also writes books, screenplays, short stories, blogs and more.