Rome – World In Flames
Trisol Music Group GmbH
Release Date: 02/08/24
Running Time: 19:36
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 8/10
It is I, Dark Juan, and I write to you from the safe haven of Crow Cottage, back in the equally safe haven of West Yorkshire. Dark Juan is approaching his half-century and Dark Juan is conflicted somewhat about it. I mean, I have managed to survive nearly fifty years and have not actually murdered anyone, conquered many demons and discovered a whole new pantheon of the fuckers to have to defeat in my head, developed a nascent alcohol problem, discovered that I actually do have respect and a stable relationship (despite my frequently shaky mental health) and I am valued in my work. This, however, is countered by an endless and very boring monologue in the lump of grey and mouldy cheese in my head that passes for a brain that constantly tells me that I am worthless, and that my existence is pointless. We have learned that alcohol obliterates that voice temporarily, and the balm that is music also shuts the chippy little fucker right up. Dark Juan has a cinematic imagination, see, and if it is busy visualising soundscapes as scenes in my head then the voice can’t get a word in fucking edgeways and it sinks below my cognition for a while. This is why I must have written half-a-million words or more for Ever-Metal.com by now. I hope you all appreciate it out there. I know Mrs Dark Juan does because it keeps me occupied, and if I am not occupied, I’d be bothering her, and she is doing important work for an upcoming exhibition at the Inverarity Gallery in Scotland.
Well, not at this particular moment. At this particular moment she’s fucking about on Facebook.
If you are suffering from mental health difficulties, Dark Juan encourages you to seek help. Only by acknowledging the problem can you expect any surcease from it. It is not weak to seek help. It is one of the strongest and most mature things you can ever do.
Dark Juan is currently listening to “World In Flames”, the latest release from Luxembourgish multi-instrumentalist Jerome Reuter, released under the name of Rome. And it is very much a performance of two parts – melancholy Gothic Industrial music and martial, uncompromising drumbeats dominate the first half of this six-track offering, whereas the last three tracks delve deep into the realms of Coldwave and Shoegaze. In fact I would even go as far as to categorise it as Dark Folk…
If you are after a cheerful, bouncy listen, you are strongly advised to look elsewhere. “World In Flames” is unconscionably bleak. A short instrumental opener, ‘Vol De Nuit’ is followed by ‘First We Take Berlin’. Dark Juan was very much hoping for it to be a reimagining of the classic Leonard Cohen track, ‘First We Take Manhattan’, but no. Instead, it is a baritone, relentlessly desolate exploration of man’s inhumanity to man – it sounds like Nick Cave on a shitload of Quaaludes over the sound of a slowed down KMFDM, and it is a very, very good piece of dystopian Industrial music indeed that kicked Dark Juan right in the arse.
‘Submission’ is more of the same bare, denuded musical landscape, Jerome’s low, dark vocal taking the role of a storyteller rather than a singer. It is disturbingly close and intimate, like an interrogator whispering just what horrors they are going to perpetrate on your restrained, unprotected flesh in order to obtain the information they require right into your quailing, terrified ear. It is a visceral experience without being blatantly heavy.
From ‘Eagle Wings’ onward the tone of the record becomes more humanistic, less Industrial and more organic. This song is based on acoustic guitar and has a soul that is desperately seeking some kind of sense out of the explosions, smoke and scattered limbs of a battlefield, anywhere in the world. This narrative is followed on as well on ‘Todo Es Nada’ and it is very timely considering that fact that Ukraine is suffering under the yoke of Russia’s illegal war and occupation, and the lyrics are particularly insightful:
“And when they strike
They strike to slay
And slay whatever is in their way
But with sword as with pen
We will still be tigers
Among men
They came to see us all stumble
See us yield and see us fold
They thought we would let it all crumble
They thought us weak and thought us cold”
This again is over (an almost Spanish flamenco) acoustic guitar and maracas, but is still subdued and watchful, fierce behind the eyes, like the eyes of a traumatised child crouching in the basement of a ruined building while attack jets scream overhead, unleashing precision-guided death at stand-off ranges before turning for home, their slaughter well performed.
It is not an easy listen, is “World In Flames”. It is not particularly heavy, but the subject matter of the music and the lyrics lends it a pathos and a suffocating quality that Metal bands rarely are able to obtain despite how much distortion or shouting they use. Heartfelt sorrow tempered with white-hot rage will always trump mere shouting for maximum emotional effect, because the quiet person is the one closest to snapping and murdering every motherfucker in a half mile radius. The title track is the final piece of music, and it is a very claustrophobic composition that ebbs and flows and pushes ever closer to your vital organs and your centre…
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is extremely moved and not a little blown away by the melancholy magnificence of Rome and awards it 8/10 for a record that doesn’t move mountains by its heaviness but does move mountains by its sheer overwhelming emotional content.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Vol De Nuit
02. First We Take Berlin
03. Submission
04. Eagle Wings
05. Todo Es Nada
05. World In Flames
LINE-UP:
Jerome Reuter – absolutely everything, folks. Makes me sick. I can’t even write properly!
LINKS:
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