DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
Ire Works
(Relapse)

ROSETTA
Wake/Lift
(Translation Loss)

OM
Pilgrimage
(Southern Lord)

SICK PORKY
Ancestral
(Zonda)

RED LIMO
Soulful Attack EP
(Self-Released)

AUTOMATIC 7
At Funeral Speed 

(Mental)

DON'T MESS WITH 
TEXAS
Los Dias de Junio

(Moonlee)

MORE REVIEWS

This blunt and expressive experimental extreme metal Philadelphia combo has in its short career already delivered a bonafide classic. Their previous album The Galilean Satellite was a near flawless exercise in brutality and experimentation; the latter mostly because the band was ambitious enough to issue two discs that could be played at once. I never tried, but fuck, disc number one was a pure shredder. Their latest Wake/Lift takes a turn into a more introspective direction; it seriously leans more towards the post-rock side of things. But it gets seriously heavy too.  This time around, it wasn’t long before I was thinking of Explosions in the Sky, of whom I never thought of while experiencing The Galilean Satellites.  Opening song “Red in Tooth and Claw” climbs its way up from the bottom of the post-rock well of generalities to the rocking summit of a shooting and sky high ringing post-rock guitar. That may be a bad description and may not even make any fucking sense at all, but if you like your post rock you shall know exactly what I am talking about.

But Wake/Lift is brutally heavy. Second cut “Lift (part 1)” takes blows at any bystander; the vocals of Mike Armine venting out introspection and seeking to leave a bruise mark on any skin, inflicting damage into psychological territory. There is something truly remarkable in Rosetta’s music and it lies hidden beyond their obvious influences. Rosetta’s music affects and the band certainly knows what is doing to get to you and through you. Seriously, the whole third track “Lift (part 2)” is incandescent sound, shut off the lights and let this track shoot sparks. The whole triad closes with fourth track “Lift (part 3)” and Rosetta takes its time, the heaviness is not pushed to the front, but the band lets time run its course and volume slowly build. It almost seems natural. Had I heard Wake/Lift was the timely turn to the post-rock field I would have approached this record with massive skepticism, but the band’s reasons for changing may just be obvious; move on or die a slow and painful death. There are three more cuts starting with “Wake” which starts the second half of the record. Rosetta slowly and successfully building robust sounds, from growing quietness to deafening heaviness, from gorgeous panoramas to blossoming explosions in the sky.

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