MUSIC FOR YOUR EARS Discover the REVIEW of Circle of Doubt By Rosetta West

Rosetta West’s Circle of Doubt is not just a song — it’s a ceremonial descent into the
shadows of the psyche, an audio meditation that simmers slowly beneath the weight of
existential fatigue. Released on April 29, 2025, to align with Beltane — a festival that
traditionally marks the divide between seasons, fire and earth, birth and burial — the
timing feels deliberate. The track taps into this same liminal energy, exploring what it
means to teeter on the edge of spiritual disintegration while hungering for a glimmer of
grace.
The soundscape is meticulously constructed. At its core is a low, looping blues riff that
drags like a heavy chain across a forgotten floor, grounded yet trance-inducing. It
carries a feeling of inward collapse — an auditory metaphor for being stuck in
psychological molasses. There’s a slackened tempo that borders on the ritualistic,
calling to mind not just blues or stoner rock, but the trance rhythms of ancient folk
traditions. This slow crawl is pierced by streaks of psych-inflected guitar work — subtle
spirals that rise like smoke, wistful and untethered. They suggest something stirring
beneath the surface — a barely-formed hope, or perhaps the memory of one.
Vocally, Joseph Demagore delivers an understated but emotionally charged
performance. His voice doesn’t howl — it haunts. The weariness in his tone isn’t
theatrical; it sounds lived-in, weathered, scraped raw by some unseen storm. He sings as
someone who’s walked through fire, not with triumph, but with tenacity. There’s a
palpable sense of inner conflict, and he offers no catharsis — only acknowledgement.
The lyrics are elliptical and symbolic, dwelling in imagery that evokes graves, fog, and
sacred emptiness. Yet there’s also a current of defiance — quiet, restrained, but steady.
Lyrically, the track revolves around cycles: circles of self-doubt, spiritual repetition, and
the fatigue of never quite arriving. There’s no resolution here, no revelation that wipes
away the fog. Instead, Rosetta West leans into the ambiguity. In a culture addicted to
clarity and clean arcs, this song insists on lingering in the unknown, in the ache between
ruin and resurrection. The words feel confessional but not specific; they’re mantras
whispered in the dark, left open for the listener’s own meaning to echo inside them.
The production — helmed by co-producer and bassist Jason X — treats sound like
sacred space. Everything feels spacious and deliberate. Guitars aren’t layered to
overwhelm, but to bleed gently into the atmosphere. Percussion, courtesy of the elusive
Nathan Q. Scratch, lands like distant thunder — controlled, textured, refusing
flashiness. His refusal to be photographed isn’t just a quirk — it feeds into the band’s
mythology, underscoring the idea that Rosetta West is not a personality-driven machine,
but a vessel for something stranger and older than rock convention.
There are no easy comparisons for Rosetta West. While the DNA of classic blues and
‘70s psychedelia is clearly present, the band threads these references through a
worldview shaped more by mysticism than nostalgia. Their sound is more devotional
than performative — music not meant to entertain, but to channel. With Circle of

Doubt, they build not a song but a ritual space, and you are not an audience, but a
participant.
The accompanying video elevates this intention further. Shot in chiaroscuro tones of
dusk and moonlight, it avoids narrative cliché in favour of symbolic presence. Band
members emerge and vanish like ghosts, their images distorted through candlelight and
fog, their instruments lit like sacred tools. The visuals don’t simply echo the music —
they extend it, as if the track itself conjured the setting into being. Every frame pulse
with atmosphere, offering no linear story, only the emotional terrain of one: collapse,
reflection, persistence.
What’s perhaps most striking about Circle of Doubt is how it unfolds. On a first listen,
it may feel dense or difficult. But with each return, new textures reveal themselves. A
stray keyboard lines. A ghostly harmonic. A rhythm that suddenly clicks into place
emotionally, not logically. It’s a song that requires patience — but rewards it with
depth. Like doubt itself, it loops, it questions, and it refuses to resolve neatly.
In the current musical landscape, where so much rock music leans on pastiche or irony,
Rosetta West’s approach is both refreshing and radical. They are not nostalgic
revivalists nor trend-chasers. They are seekers — miners of the spiritual subconscious.
Circle of Doubt isn’t interested in replicating blues rock tropes. It uses the genre as raw
material for something far more introspective, eerie, and transcendent.
This is not music for the impatient. It asks you to stop, to sit with discomfort, to look
inward. And in that stillness, something stirs. For those willing to go there, Circle of
Doubt is not merely a track — it is a doorway. Step through.