Hey Rosetta!’s Second Sight
Hey Rosetta! – Second Sight
By Greg “Red” Lehman
Finding a perfect album is rare. It is even rarer to find a perfect album from a band I’ve never heard of. And it’s “dinosaur steak meat rare” that the album is so perfect that I have to listen to it again and again in its entirety.
On their fifth album, Second Sight, Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! have done just that, creating a masterpiece of a record with musical twists and turns revealing grand caverns, dark alleyways and long grassy wind swept fields. From the subtle, intricate and sparse to the sonically decadent, each song captures an emotion and attaches to the lyrics as if in some sort of lover’s embrace.
Take for example “Alcatraz,” easily my favorite song on the album. An at one time an existent prison for the hardened criminal, the landmark serves as a metaphor for lead singer Tim Baker to describe his longing for a lost love, my favorite line being “Be warm and steady in the wind and your soft imperfect body, do not cover it.” The music is soft and gentle, but somehow conveys a sense of urgency and passion that at times seems misplaced.
The stand outs on this album are “Gold Teeth,””Soft Offering (For the Oft Suffering)” and “Kid Gloves,” but the radio hit is the uptempo “Kintsukuroi” a Japanese word that means treating breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise (thank you Wikipedia). This also describes lead singer Tim Baker’s vocals and writing. He has great tone, vocal range (think Chris Martin meets Ezra Koen) and is able to convey his lyrics, but the creative beauty of this band comes from all parts joined together. Break them down one by one and they are each great musicians, but by using Mr. Baker’s personal and touching lyrics to bind the structure together they create something so new that it can only be called a masterpiece. – (9/10)
RIYL: Vampire Weekend, .fun, The Boxer Rebellion, Externally, Young the Giant or Midlake.
Hey Rosetta!
Hey Rosetta! play the Sunset Tavern in Seattle on March 5 and Portland’s Mississippi Studio’s on March 6.