Rosetta – A Determinism of Morality

Rosetta – A Determinism of Morality CD
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Rosetta is a band from Philadelphia, PA that has been around for five years or so and this latest offering, A Determinism of Morality, is their second dedicated full-length album. They have also been on a couple of split releases and comps outside the two albums.

Rosetta takes the post-metal approach of long and heavy songs and uses it as a foundation to build additional layers of sounds that take their influence from other styles. On top of crushing riffs exists a droning shoegaze style guitar lines that add direction and melody in an almost hypnotic way. The music is equally soothing and crushing all at the same time. The drums involve tricky patterns and fills that add a math-rock style of complexity to the rhythm section while the vocals are mostly yelled in a low-pitched sound.

What really works in this already unique salad is how all this was mixed. The vocals are mixed slightly lower so instead of becoming overpowering in the foreground, they blend perfectly which gives the instrumentation the ability to drive the songs and envelop the listener. The songs take you on a journey that often times leads to a very heavy and powerful conclusion. The payoff works in nearly every instance and I was often sitting there listening to this album and saying “wow!” out loud at certain portions of songs because they were so impressive. This album plays great from start to finish and after a full week on listening to this nearly non-stop, I have yet to start skipping any tracks, something that I find extremely rare with any release.

How a band this good flew under my radar for the past few years will go down as one of life’s great mysteries but I’m glad this ended up in my possession before any more time was wasted. I’m going to have to pick up their back catalog now and hope that it is as good as this album. I highly recommend this album as I can’t seem to stop listening to it even after a week of repeated listens.