A six-piece rock band from the island of Newfoundland, Hey Rosetta! have been well known in their home province since 2006 when they won a flurry of MusicNL awards for their debut album, Plan Your Escape. Their 2008 album Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) received great acclaim throughout Canada, while one of their songs – Red Heart – became a popular anthem in support of Canada’s Winter Olympic effort. Yet, as well as their first two albums have been received, they have yet to produce an album as well-rounded and polished as their 2011 release Seeds.
The album begins with three up-tempo tunes – Seeds, Yer Spring, and Young Glass – and continues the trend until the final third of the album which contains wonderfully written ballads such as Seventeen and Yer Fall before fittingly wrapping up the album with the inspiring Bandages.
Many of the songs are quite characteristic of Hey Rosetta! Young Glass, Yer Spring, and New Sum (Nous Sommes) carry a relaxed pace until mid-song in which the tempo picks up with more enhanced drum and guitar to go with frontman Tim Baker’s insightful and warm lyrics. The band has been able to master this pace since their debut album, but with Seeds they’ve also expanded their musical catalogue with a variation of successful efforts.
Parson Brown (Upirngaangutuq Iqalunni) is a perfect example of the band trying new things. The song can only be described as an epic as it showcases the band’s pure musical talent, mixing and orchestral and rock instruments and experimenting with Inuit throat singing – two women round out the song with what can most accurately be described as strange throat noises before breaking down into laughter.
As a whole, the album bleeds passion and emotion. When Baker professes in Bandages “the loneliness is a lot, but the nothing weighs a ton” it is easy to believe that he actually feels that way, and that it is not just a weightless lyric.
More than anything, though the album does have its share of perhaps depressing lyrics, there is almost always an air of hope and optimism: the loneliness of which Baker sings about in Bandages is erased by his belief that “she” will come eventually.
Hey Rosetta!’s Seeds is one of the most enjoyable albums of 2011, and accordingly they’ve gained the recognition deserved; for the second time, they have been announced as a finalist for the Polaris Prize which celebrates the top Canadian artists of the year.