Originally written by Chris Redar
It’s not a great idea to lead a review with a terrible joke. The indication is that the critic didn’t take an appropriate amount of time with the material and has instead opted to go the cheap laugh route in an effort to mask his or her ineptitude in music analysis. And that’s if the laugh even comes at all, because jokes can be downright painful if not executed with the pin-point precision and razor-sharp wit of, say, AAA headliner Carrot Top.
But fuck all that. Rosetta should add ‘Stone’ to their name, because they’ve translated an entire album into the post-everything language of Neur-Isis, with a distinct Mastodonian accent. Was that “Ol’e Nessie” that just opened The Anaesthete? Or was it “The Beginning of the End”? Turns out the correct answer is “Ryu/Tradition”, but one would be forgiven for thinking they’ve heard this before. All of the stereotypes are present: long length (ten and a half minutes for the opener), strums that give way to huge distortion, and that tired-as-fuck pronounced scream that hasn’t been interesting since Mouth of the Architect (and even then, it served as a distraction). We’re dealing with Multiplicity all over again- did Michael Keaton not teach us that clones of clones of clones aren’t as sharp as the first clone, much less the original?
Some people use the phrase ‘It’s all downhill from here’ as a positive. If things are at their most difficult, then it stands to reason that it’s not going to get any worse. The appropriate colloquialism here then would be ‘it’s going to plateau’, because this one just kind of hovers in this dull space of uninventive instrumentation and unimaginative song structure. It’s almost like listening to the same song with the parts added in different orders, much like when McDonald’s puts out a new hamburger. It’s just ‘meat’, bun, big piece of iceberg lettuce, cheese, onion, sauce and bacon, but now the bacon is UNDER the lettuce instead of next to the box! How tasty!
“Hodoku/Compassion” makes quite a noble attempt to break the monotony with some well-executed clean singing and a gorgeous little piano section, but that riff… Every time one of these post-albums happens, it’s always that riff. Describing it is difficult, but you’ve heard it a thousand times. A bit higher than a power chord, strummed just slightly off-time- you know what it sounds like? It sounds like they’re trying to make Christmas sound creepy and tough, and it never fails to fizzle (I think we should run a contest to see who can come up with a second post-riff. Thirty dollar gift certificate to Ruby Tuesday’s on the line. Editor, make it happen).
And that riff, or a slight variation, makes an appearance in every single song on The Anaesthete. It’s the downfall of an already difficult-to-enjoy album: with infinite room to explore, Rosetta backs into a corner and plays it so safe that you can hear their mothers tightening up their knee pads so they don’t get bruises. It would be nice to hear these guys step out of the sandbox and give the monkey bars a go next time. But as it stands, this one should probably be buried by a stray cat.
