Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It (2019)
'Unsure, The Album', and not necessarily in the vein of being powerfully eclectic like a lot of albums with the 'math' tag. Moreso, Time Will Die shows mathcore band Rolo Tomassi at (supposedly) their most fragile, as they massively flaunt with emo and gothic rock influences that are abruptly transitioned into all across the album. This particular record seems to lean on what I call the 'Foo Fighters formula', wherein a band tries to be emotionally resonant by switching back and forth between melodic calmness and heavy brashness. Repeat this formula 10 times or so over and you have a full record, and lemme tell you does that formula get
tedious after awhile. It doesn't help that the repetitious elements aren't exactly of the highest quality- the vocal performances from both Spences, male and female, are noticeably shallow particularly in the softer sections. There is little middle ground between their clean and screamed vocals, and it's either halfheartedly imitate Amy Lee or Greg Puciato. Even the good parts of the album, the blitzing mathcore sections, drop off about halfway through leaving almost the entire second half of the record as glorified gothic metal...and I
cannot stand gothic metal.
In short, this record seems to feign complexity more than it actually presents it; the loud, melodramatic patches are taken WAY too seriously by the band and are about as corny as an After Forever record, and the more brutish mathcore elements that should bulk up the album are either too few-and-far-between to have an effect or are simply ill-conceived.
There's a neutral territory between halfbaked and overcooked, you just gotta find it.
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