Rome
The Hyperion Machine

In August 2016, the ninth album by Rome, aka Jerome Reuter, was released, marking exactly ten years of activity.

Throughout the years, our artist has been diligent, not missing out on releasing seven EPs, the first of which, "Berlin," made its official debut in 2006. As if to close a symbolic circle, this EP was reissued just last year, as the Rome entity "returned," with "The Hyperion Machine," to Germany, or, to be more precise, to the heart of old Europe, after the "African" adventure of the beautiful "A Passage to Rhodesia."

The "Hyperion" referenced in the title is the Hyperion portrayed by Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin in the literary work "Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece" (1797): an epistolary novel in which the protagonist, a German exile in Greek lands, reflects on the value crisis of his homeland, relating it to the canons of classical beauty, in a mirror game between present and past, Germany and Greece. An enlightening passage from Wikipedia states: "It's the story of the modern man, specifically the German man, who is unable to harmonize the forces of his soul because he has lost the sense of the divine and harmony. [...] The poet is thus a seer who, having failed in the practical and violent action of war, decides to fight for his people by helping to restore the lost harmony."

A new set of compositions from the Luxembourgish singer-songwriter unfolds upon this backdrop, always siding with the defeated, as long as they are driven by noble ideals. Predictably, the new album is the same yet different from the others: after such a dense and prolific, though short, career, our artist's creative process can lean on a solid and well-defined style. Within this framework, he once again manages to weave interesting innovations around the core of his coherent artistic vision.

The quality level of his art remains satisfying, although here and there the suspicion arises that more focus has been placed on the effect generated by the arrangement than on the writing itself: Reuter, after all, is a fertile mind, but despite this, the result of his "toiling" in the recording studio (something we've been able to test repeatedly by listening to his numerous albums) continues to oscillate around a halfway point between good and excellent.

In the same way, the expressive range cannot overlook a heart soaked with our artist's anguished and epic poetry, who today more than ever can boast the status of the most credible standard-bearer of apocalyptic folk in the third millennium, although he has approached other shores over the years. Some talk of "sad-core" and it's fair to say we’re not far from the truth, considering the stark singer-songwriter roots, visited by industrial ghosts, now tinged with new colors: a more robust and articulated sound is building around the dark ballads of yesteryear, so much so that in certain moments one might speak of rock, or at least of a mannered goth-rock that can't help but evoke the Cure or the more romantic and melodic fringes of the eighties' dark-wave, further softened by the references that have marked Reuter's path since the singer-songwriter turn taken with "Flowers from Exile," primarily Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. Not to mention those Morricone-like reminiscences inherited from the neo-folk universe from which our artist hails.

For the rest, Reuter seems to be looking toward greater accessibility, and it's not a crime, given the inspiration that continues to move his pen: in as many as four tracks, the drums make an appearance, and often the acoustic guitars are doubled by electrics that bring with them a rock twist that at times sounds new, though not revolutionizing the overall proposal. More generally, a "song-like breeze" is in the air, and the impression is that, after years of rigor and severity, the author is heading towards more melodic, rhythmic dimensions, in a word: catchy. With results far from disappointing, so much so that we might see the work as the potential start of a new course for the project. Having recently seen Reuter live, increasingly often with an electric guitar in his hands instead of the acoustic, with a real band behind him, with his classics wrapped in electricity and his repertoire enriched in a post-punk variant, seems to corroborate this thesis.

But let's return to the album, where, as usual, our artist shoulders the entire instrumentation, except for help with the arrangements from Francois Dediste, the cello of André Mergenthaler featured in three tracks, and the drums by Laurent Fuchs, as mentioned, in no less than four. The intimate opening, entrusted (after the inevitable atmospheric intro) to the intense "Celine in Jerusalem," the captivating ballad "Stillwell" (a moment of great suggestion), the affectionate emotional crescendo set up in "Skirmishes for Diotima," the Cohen-like abyss carved with "Adamas" are indelibly marked with the Rome brand and are brought to life by Reuter's characteristic baritone voice, a mournful wail at times, a cavernous rasp from a seasoned crooner at others.

Tracks like "Transference," "The Alabanda Breviary," and "Cities of Asylum," on the other hand, become lively, urgent, and demonstrate greater attention to catchy and accessible melodies, without, of course, falling into banality.

The versatility of our artist is demonstrated in the album's final glimpse: just when we thought we had everything figured out, anti-raid sirens and sacred choirs emerge from a baleful past, constructing catastrophic scenarios that resurrect the most authentic spirit of apocalyptic folk. The evocative coda of the previously mentioned "Adamas," fading into a terrifying dark-ambient, and the solemn chant captured in "Die Morder Muhsams," dedicated to the death of the anarchist Erich Muhsam, unexpectedly bring us back to the early albums released by Rome. Amid these segments, where the devastation of war mingles with the sacred and the mystical (so much so that it seems like we've suddenly ended up in "Brown Book") emerges a jewel destined to certainly remain among the classics of Rome's repertoire: "The Secret Germany" is a ballad that for its beauty and intensity evokes the tense and dramatic atmospheres of the early masterpiece "Masse Mensch Material," yet carries with it the singer-songwriter sensitivity that over the years our artist has had the chance to develop.

The "dance" concludes with the bonus-track "FanFanFan," a cover from veteran Swedish artist Thastrom (who, incidentally, lent his voice in "Stillwell"), active for many years on the industrial and post-punk front, with recent shifts towards a form of singer-songwriter style that brings him closer to the elegant moves of Rome: with the soothing and elegiac tones of this yet another successful ballad, Jerome Reuter's latest winning strike concludes, now a guarantee when it comes to the dark side of contemporary songwriting.