Organised Carnage
If you’ve ever seen Rolo Tomassi live you’ll know that they deliver one of those shows where you seriously need to have your wits about you. The band have an incredibly infectious level of energy on stage whilst delivering some impossibly technical heavy music. On record the band have always been pretty consistent, but at times the energy just hasn’t been as big as you might have experienced live, that is until Grievances smacked us in the face. You’ll be two or three tracks in to the full scale assault and you will genuinely start to wonder whether they all made it through the recording sessions without injury. It sounds like Eva Spence and co. were locked in a small room and told they’re not coming out until they deliver a spitefully meticulous beast of a record, and that they have.
Drawing clear influences from the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan and At The Drive In, it feels like with Grievances Rolo Tomassi have developed in to exactly what they’ve been after since their inception ten years ago. The furious onslaught from tracks like Estranged and Funereal are beautifully balanced against calmer periods from Opalescent and All That Has Gone Before which still carry an ominous menace to them. As a complete package Rolo Tomassi have well and truly stepped up their game and delivered an album which will leave you continually engaged. As with most records under the ‘Mathcore’ name it is through the repeat listens in which you’ll really start to appreciate some of the complexity and the depth within each track. Considering the band are so explosive live it is a very exciting prospect to see some of these tracks work their way into the set lists.
Overall then, whilst you’ll often find that bands like Rolo Tomassi may only stretch their appeal towards fans already within the scene, Grievances is good enough to potentially attract a whole new wave of people.