Rosesdead haven't taken long to assimilate their newest frontman into the mix as much of "Stages" lunges for the listener like a pack of rabid animals. With a lust for feverish tempos, screeching riffs, bellowing vocals and an unnerving sense of movement; the band refuse to follow a straight path as they dizzyingly run through this albums 11 tracks.

However, while there is a distinctive sense of vertigo that seems to continually surface through the bands tracks, not everything here is built for speed. There are numerous moments where they slow things down to a determined march as sinuous harmonic riffage and a thick rhythm section back up the gruff barks. Despite the breadth of these excursions though, one can't help but feel that the band are more relevant when they stick to their disjointed sub three minute bursts.

At times it's quite clever how the band tear through a blast of shrieking claustrophobic metal and then turn it on its ear by lulling into some weighty near space-rock sounding sonic meandering. But with such a hot and cold climate comprising most of the disc it's hard to really get settled in and take home something from it. Boring parts are drawn out, creative parts are over too fast and vice versa.

It really is a shame that "Stages" doesn't seem to have enough decisiveness to offer up some intermissions and really apply itself to the intuitiveness it often shows glimpses of. If this were the case, Rosesdead would have a much better chance at showing off their chops and making their dynamically driven changes seem far more epic. But as it is, "Stages" is a twitchy borderline-schizophrenic affair that could have been so much more.