Rombo EP brings home the pounding bass, in-your-face syths, and crispy percussive R&B.
What hath Justice wrought? The ubiquity of their bloghouse blues—the pounding bass pulse that’s there but not, synths so in the red that all 88 keys are bleeding, and crispy percussive R&B like a snort of digital meth—offers so much to pilfer but so little space on the hard drive to do it. So it’s a testament to the skill set of Bloody Beetroots kingpin Bob Rifo that he’s able to draw from the likes of Justice as well as the structured form of classical (his first domain of study), punk’s raw power, and the art-damaged futurism of New Wave to exercise his right to rawk. The Rombo EP is a tease and taster for future things, and as a place marker, it’s spot-on; peripatetic ’00s pop produced for provocation, even if only in thought rather than deed.