Rumble In Rhodos- 'Intentions'

Rumble In Rhodos
Intentions
Black Balloon Records
5/10

There is nothing more frustrating than when a bands list of influences is so literal. In a dream world your influences should be a framework you leap from, a broad and diverse list of people, places things and beliefs which inform but not dictate your music. It should never read like a list of ingredients that your music consists solely of. This is where Norway’s Rumble In Rhodos suffer. Their influences take in At The Drive In, Fugazi, Blood Brothers and Refused alongside Gang Of Four, Q And Not U and Pretty Girls Make Graves. All good you may think but the fact that at times RiR sound like a Blood Brothers tribute act shows just how literally they are taking the copy and paste approach to their music.

Jumping into the still hot embers of the Blood Brothers demise and starting a battle with Jaguar Love and Past Lives for the crown Rumble In Rhodos give as good as they have. Over eight tracks (EP? Mini Album?) they screech, growl, flip and riff as fast as anything on ‘Burn, Piano Island, Burn’ but ultimately fall short in a sea of the derivate and unoriginal. The bands single ‘Flavoured Envy’ is perhaps the stand out track from ‘Intentions’ with slick riffs and stop start bass lines colliding to create a generic but listenable backdrop to Thomas Bratlie’s shrieks and shouts. Much of ‘Intentions’ carries on in the same vein, homogenised and predictable. What is so frustrating is that at no point to they give in and work in a field they are comfortable. It’s as if there is a venn diagram between melodic rock and post-hardcore that this band are firmly stuck in the middle of, not able to boast the finer aspects of either genre nor appeal to either set of fans.

If we can be as big headed as to offer advice this is it, Rumble In Rhodos you need to go find a sound of your own and put an actual identity to your music or else you will forever be chasing legendary shadows.

Rumble In Rhodos- 'Intentions'