ALBUM REVIEW: Where Myth Becomes Memory – Rolo Tomassi
Few bands have ever managed such an impressively steady climb as that of ROLO TOMASSI over the past 17 years. Starting out as a jazzy, electronics-laden mathcore band, they’ve upped their game with every release, routinely making a mockery of the confines of genre in the process. In 2018, they reached previously unseen and long-deserved heights with the excellent Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It. It was an album as beautiful as it was visceral, and certainly made for a tough act to follow. Now they’re doing just that with their sixth full-length, Where Myth Becomes Memory. It goes without saying that expectations are high, but for a band who’ve gone from strength to strength for the better part of two decades, meeting such expectations feels all but par for the course at this point.
This record rounds out a trilogy of sorts with Time Will Die… and the similarly impressive Grievances which came before it in 2015. Much like both of those albums, Where Myth Becomes Memory is a work of powerfully striking contrast. Its ten tracks see the band veer from delicate melodicism to hair-raisingly abrasive violence time and time again. Crucially, no matter how often ROLO TOMASSI move between these different extremes, it never comes off as tropey. Instead, the album flows and evolves with considerable grace, its dynamic and textural twists and turns keeping listeners hanging onto every note and second.
Vocalist Eva Korman arguably steals the show from the outset, her dream-like cleans providing the first of many bottom lip-quivering moments on album opener Almost Always. It’s a stunning, stirring start to the record, one that sees Korman ask “Are you listening to your heart?/What happens when it stops?/Are you waiting for a sign, a goodbye?/What do you do when you’re lost?” to tear-jerking effect. It builds to a weighty post-rock-esque crescendo, followed soon after by the far harsher fare of second track Cloaked. This one’s a total monster, with Korman flitting from feral barks to lilting cleans over potent metallic riffing.
While the opening one-two provides a fine example, perhaps no tracks illustrate ROLO TOMASSI‘s mastery of juxtaposition better than the record’s middle pairing of Closer and Drip. The former is another lump-in-throat inducer, its piano-led melodicism and Korman’s beautiful vocals striking a moving and hopeful tone. Keyboardist and co-founder James Spence lends his vocal talents to this one and several others too, backing his sister with some powerful melodic cleans of his own. Followed immediately by Drip, this one snaps listeners out of any serenity with full and thunderous force. There are even comparisons to the band’s former tour-mates in GOJIRA here, a feeling which continues into next track Prescience.
Tasked with capturing the many intricacies of ROLO TOMASSI’s sound is producer Lewis Johns. The band’s long-time collaborator proves himself a master of his craft once again here. When Where Myth Becomes Memory needs to sound quiet and delicate, it does; when it needs to sound absolutely massive, it does. Everything fits in its rightful place, with each song feeling full and spacious, but never overstuffed or overlong. The record almost demands repeated listening as a result, its 48-minute runtime feeling like half that if anything.
As The End Of Eternity brings a melodic and triumphant close to proceedings, it’s hard to believe that ROLO TOMASSI have done it again. Somehow topping the already incredible Time Will Die…, Where Myth Becomes Memory is the sound of a band continuing to push the envelope in all directions. It’s an album that becomes more rewarding with every listen, and one that hammers home the ever more obvious truth that ROLO TOMASSI are one of the UK underground’s finest ever exports.
Rating: 9/10
Where Myth Becomes Memory is set for release on February 4th via MNRK Heavy.
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