ROSETTA returns in 2017 with ,Utopioid", their sixth full-length album and most concept-driven work to date. Written as a four-part song cycle that treads multipolar extremes of texture, dynamics, and harmony, it reaches the highest heights and the deepest lows of the band's career. An unflinching study of human aspiration, frailty, and betrayal, the album is equal parts mysticism and the band's own biography, encapsulating and transcending the band's 14 years of sonic experimentation. Formed in Philadelphia in 2003 as a four-piece, ROSETTA's first two albums-2005's ,The Galilean Satellites" and 2007's ,Wake/Lift" -pulled together elements from 90s hardcore, drone, doom, and atmospheric sludge metal. Informed as much by the minimal soundscapes of STARS OF THE LID as by the pulverizing weight of GODFLESH, the band's compositions had a spacedout, exploratory feel, appropriately dubbed "metal for astronauts." 2010's ,A Determinism of Morality" moved on from celestial themes, focusing on increased melodic sophistication while honing a confrontational urgency. With ,Utopioid", ROSETTA has again upended their stylistic palette. But as always, with ever deeper gratitude for the investment of fans around the world, they continue to search for the intersection of heaviness and beauty.