Rob's Best: #2: Circle Takes The Square - As The Roots Undo

 

Released: January 6, 2004.

This is an epic, swirling, layered monstrosity of an album that examines different paths to self-actualization with haunting and unique imagery and prose.  It would be impossible to even scratch the surface of all the myriad layers of device and meaning in this album; the most basic of these being cyclical repetition, images of various birds, weaving, and examinations of paintings like the French Revolution era The Death Of Marat by Jacques-Louis David and The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya.  Suffice to say that, in the end, the journey concludes essentially where it begins, albeit after having grown and learned of all the highs and lows of life.  The final conclusion being that the joy in life is taken from the journey, rather than the destination. 

Whispers invoke the artists of this tragically seamless, ill fated tapestry,
blistered fingers are tending their loom.

She collects the strands to braid into life.
Logging the weft of an ageless, woven infinity, countless raw fibers are clawing the frame.

A woman's work is never done, but the final stitch has got to come,
and so three witches contend to slice the very last thread.

(That you curse, curse constantly)

But nothing's immortal, and comfort is not guaranteed-
a yearling who bears our sincere passions is chosen, frozen and quivering,
like a thread in the wake of a blade.

So we compromise, so we sacrifice.