Live review : Rolo Tomassi + Pupil Slicer + Heriot @ The Academy Club, Manchester on February 22nd 2022

First up are Heriot who take to the stage with a backing track of digital hardcore style bass and crashing noise. The lights go red and they’re ready to go. A moment’s silence and then their vocalist screams “Manchester take a step forward!”. Blimey that woke me up. We soon learn that her piercing scream is actually also her singing voice, and is layered over violent blast-beats and a churning barrage of noise. Suddenly it drops down in pace and slows to a dirty over-driven Pitchshifter-esque bass alongside bare snare hits. It’s now ethereal and exceptionally doomy, but with brutal Pantera type deep southern metal vibes. They deliver this rollercoaster across the whole set and, while the male vocals provide a familiarity, it’s when Heriot either smash and grab with aggressive female screaming or break down to simply bass and drums that they excel.

The between bands interim music is some classic hip-hop and works well as a perfect pallet cleanser. It’s not often that I review the same band within two days…but that’s what we’re seeing tonight. I loved Pupil Slicer when they played their headline set in Chester, and you’ll be well served to read that review by me too (link here). Once again tonight they’re excellent and plough straight into their fantastic mix of mathcore and deathgrind. They have a more cohesive look tonight but the musicality is just as diverse, exciting and challenging as when we saw them the other night. I’m not sure most of the crowd know what’s going on, but gradually they warm to the avant-garde hardcore math-grind-punk. Recent single ‘Thermal Runaway’ is an amazing example of everything they do, with The Locust style screechy guitar switching in turn to Wes Borland inspired clean work. In Kate Davies they have a charismatic vocalist/guitarist, but in truth all the band are highly watchable. They’re much more brutal (if that’s possible) in this bigger venue with a fuller sound. The fact they're putting in the work and touring hard shows how much they want this, and hopefully they’ll get the results they deserve too.

Now it’s a little known fact that I played a gig alongside Rolo Tomassi when they were first starting out in the mid-noughties, and to say they have grown, matured and honed their sound since then into something truly special would be something of an understatement. New album “Where Myth Becomes Memory” is arguably their best record yet and also a masterpiece of post-hardcore prog-mathcore. Tonight they deftly mix old songs with new songs affording the crowd the opportunity to experience these new tracks in their live performance splendour whilst also revelling in the favourites and classics. On stage searchlights flash out into the crowd as they set about their craft, all members decked-out in black tops of various styles. I think this is the best live sound I’ve ever heard for them - luscious, rich and full. The guitars and vocals are well balanced and defined in particular. As always Eva Korman is phenomenal, a musical and performance chameleon - dancing and weaving in sultry fashion one minute, then shouting and shredding like a demon the next, only to move to the mic stand and deliver tender and gentle clean vocals. There’s so much syncopated work on show throughout the band here, and I don’t need to remind fans of The Dillinger Escape Plan what a delight a band delivering technical metal drumming and guitars into jazz-stylings can be. The musicianship from each member is extraordinary, and probably may now be one of the best bands technically there is - they have everything.