Rosetta West’s “Circle of Doubt” – it’s less a song dropped, more a confession overheard, a rumbling from the Illinois underground that settles deep in your sternum like a slow, incoming tide. Right from the off, you’re not just listening; you’re in it, this swirling blues-rock miasma where the psychedelic fuzz feels like the very texture of that titular doubt, clinging like damp wool. Joseph Demagore sounds like a man who’s argued with his own shadow and mostly lost, his voice etched with the geography of internal struggle, a roadmap of weariness.
The air in this track is thick, almost unbreathable, a testament to Jason X’s co-production alongside his bass and keyboard work. It’s the sound of being trapped, alright, but not in a cage you can see or rattle. No, this is more akin to being stuck in one of those repeating dreams where you run and run but the scenery just… recycles, a personal purgatory loop. That oppressive “town” they conjure? I once saw an old, water-damaged allegorical painting, slightly tilted, the faces blurred into suggestions of judgement, that evoked this same disquieting, cyclical dread. Drummer Nathan Q. Scratch and bassist Jason X lay down a rhythm section that’s less a beat, more the persistent, heavy throb of an exhausted heart.
Then, amidst this narrative of spiritual combat fatigue, this plea to an apparently deaf higher power, a raw declaration of love surfaces. It’s not a life raft, not exactly. More like finding a single, perfectly formed, blood-red bloom in the middle of a desolate, ash-covered battlefield. Utterly out of place, defiant, yet it redefines the whole damn war, doesn’t it?
This is Rosetta West, seasoned voyagers of independent sonic currents, laying bare a moment of profound exhaustion, yet still brandishing that defiant flicker. “Circle of Doubt” isn’t here to offer easy answers or a shoulder to cry on. It’s looking for anyone who truly understands the peculiar weight of carrying such an invisible chain. But I’m left pondering: is that desperate love the ultimate key to escape, or just the heaviest, most precious link holding it all together?
