Rosetta West Returns with Soul and Grit on “Gravity Sessions”

There’s something electrifying about a band that chooses truth over perfection. Chicago’s Rosetta West has always followed its own orbit, and on their new release Gravity Sessions, they come crashing back to earth with all the sonic fire and spiritual weight fans have come to expect. Recorded over a few raw and heartfelt days at Gravity Studios with veteran engineer Doug McBride, the seven track album is a lived in, visceral document of a band still chasing moments of transcendence and catching them.

Frontman Joseph Demagore, bassist Herf Guderian, and drummer Mike Weaver lean into the imperfections of a mostly live setup, capturing the unpredictability and energy of a late night dive bar performance. Gravity Sessions doesn’t try to impress with polish. Instead, it disarms with sincerity. You feel like you're in the room with them, in the thick of it, as something ancient and soulful takes form.

The album opens with “Dora Lee (Gravity),” a reworked fan favorite that now carries the weight of time and the weariness of memory.

Demagore’s voice strains with both clarity and fragility, narrating a haunting, almost hallucinogenic tale of a woman half remembered, half dreamed. It’s not just a song; it’s an invocation, with echo laced guitar lines that shimmer and collapse like collapsing light.

“Suzie (Gravity)” is another standout, a slow burning track that feels like a letter never sent. There’s heartbreak here, but also hope. Demagore’s phrasing is masterful, backed by Weaver’s intuitive drumming and Guderian’s steady, mournful bass. As with much of the album, the lyrics oscillate between the intimate and the mythic, rooted in personal longing but reaching for the metaphysical.

On “Deeper Than Magic (Gravity)” Rosetta West dives headlong into its more psychedelic and spiritual impulses. Layers of reverb and spectral harmonies swirl beneath a melody that feels ritualistic, as if the band is trying to conjure something bigger than themselves. And maybe they do, because what emerges is a song that speaks not just to the ears, but to something just beyond language.

Gravity Sessions is not just a live album. It is a living one. It breathes, it stumbles, it soars. Rosetta West has always been hard to categorize, whether as blues rock, psychedelic folk, or spiritual garage, but with this record they are simply Rosetta West: vital, vulnerable, and defiantly real.

Follow Rosetta West on: Bandcamp | X (Twitter) | Spotify