Rolo Tomassi

Cosmology

Written by: PP on 11/11/2010 03:21:38

It's been a while since I've reviewed a proper scene record again, so here we go. Quick side note before we start with the newest album from frantic UK scenesters Rolo Tomassi: EW, prepare to unleash your anti-scene hatred at the end of this review by pressing play on the player below and trying to make sense of what the hell is going on. You see, "Cosmology" is what I'd classify as nonsense scenecore. It's full of cut-and-paste sections and 8-bit nintendo-core sounds. No, "Cosmology" isn't a HORSE The Band album despite that definition, but another equally batshit crazy and strange project, though similarities definitely exist within.

In a nutshell, "Cosmology" is roughly what you'd expect if you placed HORSE, Fear Before The March Of Flames on "Art Damage", and Heavy Heavy Low Low in a blender and turned it on. It's full of stop-start time signatures, which sound fucking bizarre with circular, echoing space-effect running on the background, chaotic transitions between sections that make no sense to start out with, and little oddities that leave me standing with a blank questionmark look on my face like tinkle-sounds in the middle of a scenecore breakdown. A song like "House House Casanova" has embedded jazz and lunacy-bordering chaos to the point that it makes Heavy Heavy Low Low sound like a first grade math assignment. It should be noted here, however, that Rolo Tomassi use much fewer jazz interludes within their songs than in the past, so this album has next to nothing in common with a band like War From A Harlots Mouth. It's all extremely strange and total chaos, but there are exceptions to the rule as well, such as the heavily experimental, spacey "Kasia" that finally sounds like something that has actual structure within it. Almost, that is, until the song breaks into HORSE-style nintendo-core breakdown after a haunting section with next to no warning.

So now that we've established "Cosmology" as a record definitely not for people who haven't lived the evolution of the scene from it's original post-hardcore roots, one question remains. Can it be good when it's so strange and odd, seemingly incoherent from start to finish? It's definitely uber-trendy, though in a curiously down-to-earth and small-scale manner, but also quite good, although I can't explain exactly why. That's the beauty of Rolo Tomassi's music: it leaves you dazzled and confused by it's sheer retardedness, but at the end of the day, when you eject the disc from your chosen player medium, you leave with a satisfied feeling of having listened to something exclusive and good that only a minority of people will ever accept as 'good' just because they're wired that way.

Download: any song off the record
For the fans of: HORSE THe Band, Fear Before The March Of Flames, Heavy Heavy Low Low
Listen: Myspace

Release date 24.05.2010
Hassle Records

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