infomachine

Last night Rolo Tomassi played their second gig in York, at the Junction.  As we missed the first one, Jim and I decided that we had to get our asses down and catch them this time.

The first act on where a bitchin’ trio of kids called Ghosts on the Intercom.  They’re very impressive to say that they were about 16 / 17, and particularly impressive given that they were the random fill-in for when top support Mirror Mirror pulled out.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a first support at a local gig that I was this impressed by.  Playing mashup of new-school emo, old-school emo, math rock, jazz, slap bass, System Of A Down-style rock, punk, etc.  They’re not quite slick enough yet; you can still here the gaps when they shift from one extreme to the other.  But give them a year, and these kids will be one of the best bands in York.

Which, unfortunately, cannot be said of Darker Shades of Gorgeous.  I can’t remember the last time a room cleared so quickly: by the end of the first song, the crowd in front of the stage was something like a fifth of what it had been at the start.  Depending on who you spoke to, the responses were that they sounded like a shit Strokes, a shit Kings of Leon, a shit The View, or a shit mix of all of the above and every other shit pseudo-artrock indie band of the last few years.  As one charming gentleman was overheard to say in the toilets: “if you come to a math rock gig, you expect to hear fucking math rock”.

However, they were slightly redeemed by the fact that the lead singer was the spitting image of Donny Osmond.

Rolo Tomassi were good.  Really good.  Eva’s voice is incredible, going from one of the best metal screams I’ve ever heard to beautiful ethereal sounds with perfect ease (admittedly using two mics, but still very impressive), the band leaping from jazz to spazz core to prog to math rock without really blinking.  All of which makes it particularly difficult to criticise them.  But I’m going to have to.

If you’ve read any of the hype, you’ll be expecting a band leaping styles every two seconds, ridiculous gameboy styled instrumentation, and fitting every single genre under the sun into less than one minute.  Unfortunately, it’s not anywhere near as mashed up as you would be lead to believe, the keyboards are impossible to hear under the thrash-core instrumentation (which I’m fully prepared to accept is partially the fault of the Junction’s sound guy), and we are only basically talking about two genres: heavy and jazzy.  They’re just not as crazy as they think they are.

This is not to say that they’re not well worth seeing.  They are a stunning live act, a very good twisted pop act.  But, if you read the hype and think that you want to hear a band that sounds like that, check out Gay Against You, check out DJ Scotch Egg, check out Ove-Naxx, check out Girl Talk, check out hundreds of other acts.  And don’t think that Rolo Tomassi do what they say on the tin.