On Histories Of Rosenberg - On Histories Of Rosenberg EP

With Am I Awake’s echoing guitar and plaintive cymbal ripples, On Histories Of Rosenberg waste no time establishing their serious-but-conventional intentions. Danger Danger tightens the tempest, but it’s too mono-dimensional for its howls to register as anything other than iffy Biffy. Overall, the closest comparison is Sparta, i.e. the plain tofu to Mars Volta’s intergalactic, Blumenthalian space-banquet - which sounds overly harsh till you add the caveat that Sparta were pretty good at what they did, just not exactly eyebrow-raising. Rosenberg are sporadically thrilling, and the (very) occasional surprise – the glockenspiel on Leave Us Here for example – proves they’re not coasting. But they’re also derivative and lacking definition; luckily, two elements that should improve over time.