Other times you come across an album that alters everything you knew about a band. The God of the Dead by Rosetta West is just such a revelation–a daring artistic declaration that finds the Illinois blues-rock band at their most adventurous and emotionally bare. It is immediately evident that this is not merely another album full of songs, but a very well thought out excursion of sound and spirit.
This is truly something special here by this Illinois-based band, a sprawling, fearless exploration that cannot be constrained by genre. It is as though the album is an exploration of an underground cave system, with each song opening up new caverns of sound and emotion. Demagore has an impressive vocal range, as he can go from punk-rock snarl to tender croon with the effortlessness of an old storyteller, and his guitar work can go fuzzy, distorted blues to delicate acoustic passages.
The first thing that I feel stands out in the poem God of the Dead is its emotional sincerity. This style of writing songs in a longform style especially seen in the two-part tracks of Susanna Jones creates a sense of narrative that makes this less of a series of songs and more like chapters of a very personal book. The rhythmic basis of Mike Weaver and Nathan Q. Scratch keeps everything on the ground, despite the music forays into the realm of psychedelic.
The mystical motifs of the album are not pretentious or artificial. Rather, they provoke introspection, such as midnight chats with a sagacious friend who has encountered more than their fair share of the secrets of the world. The songs such as the one called Midnight where Louis Constant, a guest bass player, performs his parts, demonstrate the band capability of combining the raw energy and the honest tenderness.
God of the Dead is wild and gorgeous, and it requires a lot of patience, but it pays off ten-time more. It is one of those albums which is new and deeper each time you listen to it and it is also what makes Rosetta West the reputation of uncompromising artists who will go as far as their vision takes them.
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