LIVE REVIEW: Rolo Tomassi @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester

If there’s something that tonight’s headliner, ROLO TOMASSI, and main support act, PALM READER, share, outside of being two of the finest bands in the UK’s underground hardcore scene this past decade, it’s that they’ve both been overlooked by too many for too long. Neither of these bands are the hot new thing anymore for a media that is often obsessed with that hunt for that next shiny commodity, but they’re both bands who have slogged like few others and have shown impressive growth and a willingness to push themselves into territories other bands may be too nervous or simply too bland to venture into.

First up though is a band much earlier on in their musical development, which makes their stature as a live band already not something to be sniffed at. New York’s CRYPTODIRA were handpicked by ROLO TOMASSI to open this tour and are playing their first ever shows in the UK as a result, just a few months after the release of their debut album The Devil’s Despair. The t-shirts on display from the members – NEUROSIS, DEATH GRIPS, KING CRIMSON – suggest a diverse palette and that’s exactly the kind of thing shown in the progressive metal that they play, but refreshingly it’s not sterile or afraid to get dirty either. Opener proper Constituted: I. Constitutum is all elephantine stomp, and there are plenty of moments where a relatively straight-ahead groove will suddenly fly into a DILLINGER-esque freak-out and pull the rug out from under you. Their dual vocal approach is especially savage and they make the most of what little room they have on stage throwing themselves around, and while they aren’t always able to fully retain attention during their quieter moments, these do succeed in accentuating the power of the heavier ones. There’s nothing revolutionary or especially mind-blowing here right now, but they certainly seem like ones to watch.

Rating: 7/10

PALM READER meanwhile are just a few days ahead of releasing their long awaited third album Braille. They’ve been playing songs off it in various guises for what feels like a long time now, but with the release so near, they seem especially invigorated and up for it tonight. PALM READER’s progression album upon album is pretty impressive, and for a band who have way in the past sounded like they were too aggro to slow down at all, the seismic groove of opening new song Internal Winter conjuring up shades of WILL HAVEN is a superb thing to behold. Even more so is their newfound fondness for melody, vocalist Josh Mckeown putting in a powerful performance exploring his range more than ever before on new songs Swarm and Like a Wave. What they importantly have not lost though is their acerbic nature and tendency to treat every stage they walk on like it’s personally insulted them. Songs like standalone single Always Darkest and the monstrous likes of Stacks and By the Ground, We’re Defined from 2015’s excellent Besides the Ones We Love aren’t lacking in nuance themselves but are wholly destructive. They’ve built up plenty of great material thus far, but even now with Braille, everything about PALM READER seems to suggest that their biggest heights are still very much ahead of them, everything they do building upon and playing with what came before. With live shows like this being reliably great too, hopefully now the rest of the world can catch up.

Rating: 8/10

This neatly brings up onto tonight’s headliners, because while they’re still a way off from the kind of venues they rightfully deserve to be playing in, ROLO TOMASSI are currently playing a UK tour that is entirely sold out. They’ve stuck out through times when bands making challenging music like theirs were not given the opportunities they deserve by the scene at large, and now off the back of their universally acclaimed new album Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It are finally enjoying some of the fruits of their labour. The band are clearly loving it, focusing the set heavily on that album and its predecessor Grievances, and throwing themselves into these songs with total conviction. It pays off, because from start to finish, ROLO TOMASSI are a whirlwind of brilliant shining light and energy, and are totally gripping. And that’s not to say it’s pure blistering chaos; just like on that incredible new album, there’s not a single screamed vocal until nearly ten minutes in. Instead, the gorgeous synths of Towards Dawn wash over the crowd setting the perfect mood before the band kick into Aftermath, the closest thing to a pretty pop song ROLO TOMASSI have ever released that manages to be jammed with the sweetest melodies without compromising any of their inventive identity. The transition into Rituals then is made all the more searing, the people on stage seeming to transform in front of the eyes as they tear into what feels like a mathcore band trying their hand at symphonic black metal of all things.

This dichotomy between the feral and the beauty is such a core part of what the band are, but what marks them out as special and what they have grown increasingly good at doing is melding the two in such a way that it doesn’t feel like they’re simply jumping between two extremes which any number of bands can do. On songs like A Flood of Light, the line between ethereal and heavy is so blurred as to be indistinguishable, Eva Spence flowing between her contorted howls and her angelic cleans so naturally in an incredible show of vocal skill. She is a one of a kind stage presence, her elegance the perfect counter to her brother James Spence who at one point emerges from beyond his keys in order to leap from the balcony onto the crowd below. They match the wild beats of the music they create perfectly, from the frantic Stage Knives to Whispers Among Us which out of nowhere features a progressive death metal riff that feels like it could be straight off of a GORGUTS record of all things. It is in the final crescendos like that in the aforementioned A Flood of Light and closer Illuminare which they become transcendent, bathed in blue light. Like ARCHITECTS in the mainstream, their peers aren’t just hardcore or metalcore bands, but bands like CULT OF LUNA. They are capable of incredible artistic peaks, and they are currently on the form of their career.

Rating: 9/10