Few bands can have metamorphosed their art with as much patience as Rolo Tomassi. Formed in Sheffield in the mid-2000s, the British outfit led by Eva Spence and her brother James long seemed an elusive object: convulsive mathcore in their early days, they gradually folded into their violence stretches of ambient, of post-metal, of an almost ethereal electronica. Where Myth Becomes Memory, hailed by a unanimous press (an 86 average across nine reviews), crowns this long moult.
What the press celebrate is the perfect fusion of extremes. Rolo Tomassi no longer merely juxtapose fury and beauty: they make them coincide, braid them into a single emotional trajectory. Eva Spence’s voice, able to move from a demented scream to angelic singing in a second, embodies on its own this vertiginous duality.
Musically, the record is of rare richness: cinematic synth layers, brutal rhythmic ruptures, suspended melodies that seem to float above the chaos. The broad, detailed production gives each stratum room to breathe. One thinks of a dream shot through with nightmares, or the reverse.
The very density of the work may disconcert: Where Myth Becomes Memory demands the listener’s full attention and yields only over repeated listens. Those seeking immediacy will pass by; the others will find a world of a record.
Verdict: 8.5/10. An ambitious, devastating work that installs Rolo Tomassi among the most singular outfits of their generation.
