Rolo Tomassi – Grievances

Rolo Tomassi's complex and uncompromising aesthetic has seen them perhaps fall between two stools: leftfield additions to the Download bill on the one hand; ultimately too demanding for the indie crowd on the other. Their hardcore would argue that their genre-fusing earns them more plaudits but the undecided still shrink from Eva Spence's growl and the band's precison-tooled metallic battery. And here comes album number four, all ambition and advancement, taking potshots at the doubters with dizzy glee.

It's the Rolo Tomassi album for people who don’t think they like Rolo Tomassi. Home to their best songs to date, showcasing sophisticated arrangements and musicianship to match, Grievances is a new high. From the firebomb opening of Estranged to the closing, epic symphonics of All That Has Gone Before, it's artfully assembled and deftly sequenced. Administering thrills both cerebral and rib-crackingly physical, Grievances is Rolo Tomassi's most accomplished, and most accessible, work to date.