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Music

PREMIERE: Rolo Tomassi - “Stage Knives”

One of the UK’s most audacious, dynamic, and unrelenting alternative bands are back with a single so fierce you could give it a weave and call it Beyoncé.
Emma Garland
London, GB

Last month marked the 10 year anniversary of Rolo Tomassi, one of the UK’s most audacious, dynamic, and unrelenting alternative bands. Over that time, they’ve gone from strength to strength, dipping in and out of different stylistic pools yet refusing to submerge themselves fully in any one of them. We’re premiering “Stage Knives”—the first single from their upcoming fourth album, Grievances.

Sticking with Holy Roar—one point of the holy trinity of London math/hardcore labels alongside Tangled Talk and Big Scary Monsters—Rolo have prevailed in a scene that sees bands come and go faster than celebrity vloggers. Though they’ve been through several line-up changes in their time, “Stage Knives” is a return so fierce you could give it a weave and call it Beyoncé. And it could only have come from a band that has paid their dues, stuck things out, and perfected their art.

Here’s what co-vocalist/synth player James Spence had to say about the track: "For me, this captures the more cathartic side to Grievances. This particular song was written about moving away from somewhere that had effectively shaped who I was as a person and what I'd left behind."

Grievances will be released on 6.1 via Holy Roar Records.

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