Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood)

Six-piece Canadian indie rockers Hey Rosetta! return with a second offering attempting to be as epic as the album title. Into Your Lungs has been well received in its homeland; winning Album of the Year at the inaugural Verge Music Awards, being nominated for 2008 Atlantis Music Prize, and shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Awards.

‘Grandiose’ is a word preferable to ‘Epic’ to describe the album. Though certainly epic in its scope and demonstration of talent it proves to not quite achieve its objective of wanting to be an equally soaring and powerful indie rock album alongside the likes of the Arcade Fire’s Funeral or perhaps even Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary.

Instrumentally the album is fantastic and goes some way to achieving its goals. The opening track, ‘New Goodbye’, begins intimately with hand clapping complimented by some skilled guitar work from lead guitarist Adam Hogan, winding its way past some well placed violin from Kinley Dowling to end with Tim Baker calling “wide and wide eyed” just before a crescendo of noise climaxing in reverb. The following track, ‘I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time’, has punchy guitars that remind you why you were a little fond of Hope of the States and the string section demonstrates a real capacity for talent rivaling anything Win Butler’s troupe can offer. Tracks such as these are a real credit to a band regularly applauded for its impressive live performances.

Epic is good but epic can be tiresome and even grating if over-done. Unfortunately this is the case here. When you have twelve tracks each averaging five to six minutes each having its own measured start building towards a culmination of over-bearing noise they sadly begin to merge into one. Instead it would have been better to have really highlighted the talent for this particular style by showing some restraint and putting three or four tracks with simple chorus to verse transition that were easier on the ear and broke up the album a bit more.

Lyrically, Baker’s lines seem on occasion clever but often not believable. ‘Open Your Arms’  features the intelligently written “I lived my life dotted i’s, these knotted fingers toed the line”. Baker though can’t quite get across the emotiveness of self-observation when later in the song the line “I’ve been crying all of my life I guess and all my smiles were just cringing and tired” seems somewhat forced.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of ‘grandiose’ is, as mentioned, fitting; ‘Grandiose :extravagantly or pretentiously imposing in appearance or style’. Into Your Lungs is a valiant effort at an extravagantly grand indie rock album but is marred by over-indulgence and a lack of self-restraint.