Sometimes it’s grueling to find the proper lexis for an artist’s sound when they’ve summed it up so nicely for you. At least, that’s the case with Rosetta. The Philly metal four-piece, which rose out of the ashes of hometown beasts Mykado, Sundayrest, and Sense Fracture in 2003, self-describes their music as “metal for astronauts” – “a sonic expression”, as they put it, satisfying to those who’ve surpassed Earth’s atmosphere (both physically or metaphysically, of course). It’s an encumbered delineation that does my job for me. But if that’s not enough for you, I’ll give it a shot: Rosetta churns out experimental, multi-layered metal slow-burners that are canorous, gnostic and scorching (for proper introduction to the Translation Loss Records-signed outfit, download 2005’s The Galilean Satellites). They’re also almost empyrean – cosmic build-ups and penetrating breakdowns that transport you to a higher state of consciousness. It’s not post-punk, post-hardcore or post-anything (by the way, the guys “oppose” that subgenre prefix). It’s just music with a larger objective. So if you want to lose yourself in new dimension, go to the North Star tonight for Rosetta’s album release party, and maybe stay for bill sharers Caspian, Japanese Sunday and Austria’s Lehnen.North Star Bar, 2639 Poplar St., 9pm, $10, 21+ (Photo by Andrew Weiss) – Annamarya Scaccia