Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Rosetta
Label: Translation Loss Records
Release: 2005
Runtime: 116:54
Rating: 5/5
A problem that isn’t one – you start a band with friends from your early youth, one that sinks its teeth into the fresh apple of budding post-HC, drone, avant-garde and spacey ambient (the stuff Neurosis and Isis had already sown among enthusiastic herds of ever-hungry music lovers), you adopt the form and jokingly morph into a band making “metal for astronauts”, and yet shaking off the primal origins of this world doesn’t go all that well, all the effort and years notwithstanding. Rosetta, an American quartet of this kind of musical avant-garde from Philadelphia, have been trying to scrub off the post-metal label since day one of their existence, and part of this rather grueling tilting at windmills is their first studio release, the 2005 record The Galilean Satellites, which, true to its name, still orbits the main gravitational centers of this multicolored universe today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4kAL4OJH9M
So let’s dig into this truly outstanding and rich debut, where the whole epic through space began. The Galilean Satellites is exceptional already in its form, since the then totally fresh band under the same title binds together two parallel stories – one about solid masses of eruptive metal, the other about the gentler contours of pure ambient – on two hour-long CDs. A truly extraordinary experience that reveals almost the entire arsenal the band had piled up since its birth in 2003 pours into your ears on two physically separate carriers, whose differences mirror the soul of four men and one single big, emotion-packed metal world. Rosetta decide to reach for the stars the way epic heroes from the annals of music only dared to dream of, and to realize, after a long time together. The road begins with the primal cosmic eight-minute radiation of Départe, which launches you into spheres of cathartic bombardment with highly radioactive isotopes of musical perfection. The CD says: “These songs are about a space man” and between the lines you can feel a sincere reflection of total fascination with astronomy, though travel across the cosmic expanses is slow going anyway. The rhythm of David Grossman’s fat, dreamy bass clings to the heavily reverbed distortion of the band’s production wizard, guitarist Matthew Weed. The top-notch performance is rounded out by a truly outstanding organic feel for drumheads and cymbal steel, which drummer Bruce McMurtrie Jr. radiates in an almost jazzy way, while the cherry on top of this genuinely colossal experience is the charismatic singer Michael Armine, who uses his vocal cords as a tool for sensually painting thick layers of sound. “Across the forever night, / take me to see her, / the monolith, / that knows the tales, / dwelling inside man, / telling of the names,/ dwelling inside me” sings the opening track, so that during the flight through orbit we first approach Jupiter’s sixth moon – the majestic Europa. “Finally I’m coming home / The satellites they guide me, / around your moon, / they take me in, / and I’m shouting out. / They take me in, / and onto your shores. / They take me there, / and I’m crying out. / Crying out to satellites to take me. / Cry and I’ll be saved – no way out.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkzDCNivHh4
Touches of cosmic chill and electronic bleeps stretch the empty canvas of Absent across the dark night sky, while Rosetta write, with a steady hand, new lines in the story of a man who is dissatisfied with the world around him and looks for a place of peace far away from people, leaving behind many things without which he remains far emptier and robbed of his inner purpose. Rosetta put it across in a way that comes totally natural to prog bands, but they breathe primal rawness into a fairly mathematical structure, along with the artistic side of experiment-friendly metal. In that light the narrative is both conceptually full and musically flawless, and Rosetta carry on with their own brand of intellectualizing without any major detours. “Europa, / set my sails, / on your oceans of ice tonight” is the inner moment of upheaval within the song Itinérant, as the traveler seeks his direction toward a long-lost homeland. Au Pays Natal closes the first leg of the journey with a bitter, static feeling of melancholy and disappointment. The orbit of the ideal descent is lost, and with it the dream of a better, brave new world far away from earthly worries. “Look to the sky for Mary. / Bleed up to the light. / Shell of a man forgotten, / his human form at last, / shell of man, / forgotten human form. / Your dream died today …” urges resignation and giving up hope among the artifacts of a forced renaissance. The first part is full of explosions and atmospheric thunder of sensual brutality, hiding a perfect balance between seemingly chaotic raggedness and total calm and serenity. This seemingly perfect whole still has room for polish, though.
The more sensual start of the second leg of the journey feels like crossing a dividing line and pouring a once-unbreakable hard body out of the physical into a softer form, becoming fully committed to the metaphysical. The body floats and time ticks away colossally slowly, drone-style. Daneb is the first nebula to greet us on a fully instrumental flight away from home into the icy bosom of a mystical universe. The inspiration Rosetta found in astronomy shifts from our home galaxy and the interplanetary dance into the sphere of high-flying stars, and the song titles are in fact the actual names of these gas masses and distant lights in a sky we know little about. After Daneb comes the pulse of Capella, the sixth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Arcturus and Vega, the third-brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere. Then Rosetta carry us to the constellation of the Eagle and the star Beta Aquilae, so we can reach the red dwarf that shows its contours with satanic ominousness in the song Ross 128. This extraordinary flight through a sky that is little known and above all so coldly alien and emptied out ends in the very heart of our galactic center. The track Sol is in fact a unique musical tribute to the light source of our life here and now. Eruptions of solar storms and fiery tongues from the restless surface merge superbly with static into one complete whole. After the failed escape from the world he is bound to, the fugitive of this first musical voyage burns up on his flight toward the glowing surface of the star closest to us. And now comes the revelation: even though the two discs are so different, they share one common point. Rosetta served you both discs at once so you can take them in simultaneously, and the incredible interweaving of one and the other part of the sound spectrum is meant for playing them together, as a complementary fusion of sound. Genius!
The concept alone is the kind that easily knocks the solid ground from under your feet and rocks you into total ecstasy, one that will leave you no choice but to admit that Rosetta are far more than just another one in the endless string of bands from an artificially emerging genre. Rosetta are pioneers and the elite of this musical world, and the true transcendent factor worth singling out is the genuinely inspired artistry and an intellectualism that foams with thoughts and feelings. The Galilean Satellites holds so much unique and truly juicy excellence that you’ll struggle to recover for a long time after listening, or to put it another way – if there’s even a little curious soul in you that loves metal, then by the very definition of the word you’ll consider getting your hands on this dose of eclectic brilliance a necessity! Rosetta repay the effort you put in with multiple listening orgasms, after which you’ll know firsthand what it feels like to have your third eye wide open!
Line-up
Michael Armine – sound manipulation, vocals
David Grossman – bass
Bruce McMurtrie Jr. – drums
J. Matthew Weed – electric guitar
Production
Matt Weed
Tracklist
CD 1:
1. Départe
2. Europa
3. Absent
4. Itinérant
5. Au Pays Natal
CD 2:
1. Deneb
2. Capella
3. Beta Aquilae
4. Ross 128
5. Sol
