ROLO TOMASSI / BLOOD COMMAND / CASSUS | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Thurs 1 Nov
Norwich might be something of a geographical outpost but the first band on tonight’s bill demonstrate that the city isn’t a cultural isolation chamber. You could hear Deafheaven in space, let alone in East Anglia, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to recognise the American titans’ influence in Cassus’ blistering assault, which is frequently awe-inspiring in its complexity and precision. Unfortunately, while possessed of a paint-stripping scream, vocalist Natty Peterkin cannot carry off the singing occasionally required of him, the quiet coda to set closer Reduced Possibility: Engendered Determinism leaving him painfully naked and exposed without the fig leaf of noise.
Faced with the prospect of a Norwegian band named Blood Command, you might anticipate an ashen-faced black metal outfit – not a moustachioed, high-kicking guitarist in sportswear and a sweatband, stadium rock hand-clapping, or the chorus of Bryan Adams’ Heaven dropped into the middle of a song. Darting bewilderingly between punk, metal, emo and pop-rock, Blood Command are a postmodernist’s idea of fun, if not mine. As they depart the stage to Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is A Place On Earth, I’m left wondering on what level and in which dimension it might all make sense.
If anyone knows about throwing curveballs, it’s Rolo Tomassi. The headliners have been bending heavy music into odd, intricate shapes for more than a decade, toying with time signatures and keeping headbangers on their toes. Very few metal bands have the ability to create a surging moshpit in an instant and then confuse its participants into motionlessness the next, as they do on more than one occasion tonight (strobe lighting only adding to the disorientation). Fewer still think so far outside the box as to work with Diplo, as they did on second LP Cosmology. You can’t help but marvel at the ferocity and dynamism of their music, and at the fact that such unholy noises can possibly emanate from vocalist Eva Spence, jack-knifing about on stage as though she’s being electrocuted.
The set draws deeply on latest album Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It, with Rituals kicking us off and Balancing The Dark stirring dancers into action. Contretemps, Aftermath and Opalescent prove Rolo Tomassi can do epic as well as manic, achieving a kind of heavy serenity reminiscent of Deftones. The sequencing results in a gradual loss of momentum, though, and it’s left to Estranged to restore (dis)order and A Flood Of Light to illustrate that they’re capable of reconciling their bipolar impulses within a single song.
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos NOEL GARDNER