page_title: Rolo Tomassi
section_title: Musical style
hierarchical_section_title: Rolo Tomassi / Characteristics / Musical style
caption_attribution_description: English: Rolo Tomassi live in Oxford, UK.
context_page_description: Rolo Tomassi are a British band from Sheffield, England. Their name is taken from a dialogue in the film L.A. Confidential. The band is known for their strong DIY ethic and chaotic style and performances. They are currently signed to Holy Roar and Ipecac Recordings.
  The band released two albums on Hassle Records: Hysterics and the Diplo-produced Cosmology. After creating in 2011 their own record label called Destination Moon, they released Eternal Youth, a compilation album of B-sides, remixes and rarities from throughout their career, and their third album Astraea, in 2012 with the first line-up change in their career. They then released two albums on Holy Roar records: Grievances and Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It.
context_section_description: Their music has been difficult to classify simply because of the band's resistance to being identified with one single genre. Described as "like a polished chrome King Crimson for the 21st Century" they have typically been acknowledged as being mathcore, a tag which summarises the theoretical complexity of their music, such as odd time signatures like 9/8 and 13/8 and polyrhythmic drumming. They have been identified as "falling somewhere between grindcore, progressive and alternative rock" and have been categorised as experimental rock, Nintendocore, post-metal, post-hardcore, progressive hardcore, progressive rock and screamo. The band utilises two vocalists in their music, a quality which "immediately creates a rich and textured sonic world". Eva Spence's vocal style was acknowledged by Michael Wilson of the BBC as bi-polar; swapping between "fragile lullabies to blood-curdling scowls". Her singing voice is in a soprano vocal range and has been compared to the stylings of Alison Goldfrapp of Goldfrapp and Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins.
  Their earlier work - such as Hysterics, Cosmology and their demos and extended plays - was known for its use of jazz breakdowns and swapping chaotically between explosive mathcore, calm atmospheric experimental music and acid-jazz. Their music is also noted for sharing traits with Nintendocore for the use of 8-bit synthesizers and in terms of chaos and sound. The compilation album Eternal Youth by the band gave insight into their musical development since their inception in 2005 with their demos onto their latest b-side releases with Hassle records.
  Their style developed further into their pop, ambient, shoegaze and space rock elements for their third album Astraea and has been jokingly dubbed as cosmic-core. For one of the b-sides from the album - "Mezmerizer" - NME journalist Hamish MacBain classed it as a "space rock ballad". For the album, the band decided to base its name on the goddess of the same name, a reference to the Spence siblings admiration for Greek mythology and a desire to pick a title which made the album "sound big and like this proper body of work". The non-album single "Old Mystics" and the song from the album "The Scales of Balance" both make reference to the "Golden Age" declared by Astraea.
  In contrast to the lighter tone developed on Astraea, their fourth album Grievances frentic and dark in it composition- utilising pianos and violins for a darker character. Their fifth album Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It- described by James Spence- "Continues in the vein of Grievances' darkness – but shouldn't be used to judge what all our new material sounds like."
caption: Eva Korman
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