Sunday 17 February 2008

Print Journalism

I have made my way into the heady world of print journalism. I reviewed Rolo Tomassi when they played corp last week. Here is a link to the review. Below that is the original review, which I've posted mainly for the Hilary Duff reference.

Rolo Tomassi @ Corp



"What strikes you first about Rolo Tomassi is how awkward they look when the come on stage. Given their average age of 18, they give the impression of a group of kids lost on their way to their school talent show. Such impressions are short lived however, as they suddenly explode into a melee of flailing limbs, guttural screaming and blast beats. Dancing around the stage in the same way that most teenagers would only dance in the privacy of their bedrooms, seemingly unaware that there’s an audience watching, Rolo Tomassi display the kind of reckless abandonment that only the young can get away with, suddenly going from balls to the wall grindcore into what sounds like the theme music from Tetris, only to stop as suddenly as they started, as if they’ve simply grown bored of what they’re playing. Over the space of thirty minutes, Rolo Tomassi manage to have a go at more styles of music then most bands do in their entire careers, going from chugging, sassy hardcore into prog-inspired keyboard breaks, doom metal riffs into 8-bit Gameboy pop then back into some overly technical grindcore, all of which is topped off by front woman Eva’s vocals. Despite bearing more than a passing resemblance to teen star Hilary Duff, her death metal growl recalls that of Tom Araya from Slayer or JP from The Locust. Only far more pissed off.
Closing with an epic rendition of “Curby”, which sees an arpegiated keyboard line morph into an intense driving metal outro, Rolo Tomassi leave the stage as quickly as they arrived, having safely proved why they’re currently the best band in Sheffield."

Now that I'm officially a journalist, I have a legitimate reason to refuse to pay for things.