Rome
Nera

"Nera," released in 2006 by Cold Meat Industry, is the first full-length by Rome, the artistic creation of Belgian Jerome Reuter, a new sensation in the apocalyptic folk scene.

Cover and title are eloquent in evoking imagery dearly beloved to the scene and much discussed and opposed outside of it; the music, for its part, undeniably recalls entities like Death in June and Der Blutharsch.

The question arises spontaneously: it's 2006, was there really a need? And at this point, I could tell you the usual tales that the moniker Rome has nothing to do with the capital city but is a diminutive of Jerome, or that the primary sources of inspiration, according to the person concerned, should rather be found in the artistic output of various Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits (influences that we will actually find more evidently in later works).

What really matters is that when listening to Rome, one doesn't have the impression of facing a blatant recycling operation or the warlike clamor of the fool of the moment.

One feels that, substantively, Rome is made of a different dough. The essence of his music, beyond the debatable (presumed or actual) ideological choices, is that of an anguished singer-songwriter style in which the war destruction scenarios, the tragic events that tore apart the history of the twentieth century, constitute a backdrop intended to heighten the emotional tension this music aims to evoke, in both words and melodies.

As expected, intense folk ballads alternate with dark industrial episodes and solemn symphonic interludes, all blended by Reuter's melodic talent, carefully avoiding the harshness that the genre often requires.

A deep and suffering voice rises above it all, leaving behind the music as a distant cacophony: a blurred and elusive world that serves as a backdrop, that dirties, that contaminates the poetic vision of a romantic hero who, along with the world itself, sinks into a vortex of chaos and futility (noteworthy, in this regard, is the massive use of industrial loops and samples constantly called to tarnish the melodic dimension sketched with heavy brushstrokes by the acoustic arrangements).

The arsenal employed in "Nera" is thus a palette with few colors. However, the artist's hand, already steady and precise, paints with incisiveness a stylized and shadowy landscape depicting the dramas that disrupt human history: facts and suggestions that actually return to being the mirror in which the pains of the soul are reflected; a whisper, a voice, that gets lost in the roar of gunshots and collapsing buildings.

The album opens with the inevitable atmospheric introduction. What awakens us is the clamor of air-raid sirens and the martial step of the drums, called to outline the awkward movements of a song ("A Burden of Flowers") that would vaguely sound like Tom Waits, if not for the tearful voice that sinks it from the very first notes.

In "Reversion" that "pop" attitude which will occupy increasing spaces in subsequent works already peeks through, but in "Nera" one still strongly breathes the stench of gunpowder and the ruins it causes.

"A la Faveur de la Nuit," for example, is a piano ballad of indescribable sadness, where Jerome's words are covered by the distressing barking of dogs: barks that tear through the piece's poetry, just as the madness and ferocity of a senseless world appear terrible and grotesque in a child's eyes.

"Das Unbedingte" devastates in its simplicity. The most basic arpeggio in the world endlessly repeated, few verses, repeated with suffering authority: this is apocalyptic folk, this is Rome's music, as essential as it is engaging.

Thus, one slowly descends along the crevices of a world empty of hope and filled with pain. And while screams and sampled voices are echoes of a chaotic and annoying reality, Reuter's suffering voice weaves songs of passion and solitude worthy of the great names of the genre, with an emphasis, however, that makes him unique even within the genre itself: equally distant from Pearce's proverbial disillusionment as from Albin Julius's fierce warmongering, Reuter becomes the creator of music full of pathos and romanticism, cloying at times, but always and sincerely genuine. Thus it happens in "Beasts of Prey," another grim ballad. Thus it happens in "Hope Dies Painless," animated by a piano riff that sounds so Death in June that it reminds us how much of Pearce's art contains all, or almost all, apocalyptic folk.

The two components, the folk and the industrial, are complementary, although it's more convincing when Reuter plays the singer-songwriter rather than playing Der Blutharsch. And it's certainly a good thing that over time, Rome's music will manage to free itself more and more from certain settings to embrace an intimate and increasingly personal dimension, aimed at probing the harshness and fractures of a fragile and gentle soul.

"Nera" may be schematic and predictable in its progress; scholastic in parsimoniously respecting the clichés of the genre. Yet, it is capable of emanating an undeniable allure, to which it is difficult to resist, regardless of musical tastes.

It's no coincidence that Rome, only two years later (and three albums!, not counting the EPs), will deservedly be counted among the few names still capable of keeping the flag of apocalyptic folk high today!