Four years ago, I was writting about ROME for the first time... and I was so excited but also wondering why I was the only one to see great potential in this project... I am reffering to specialized reviews that seemed rather laconic and writen in addle language. Jerome had just founded ROME having released the "Berlin" MCD with CMI and was composing their debut album. Jerome and Patrick make use of valences and influences so assorted that the best you could do is to follow what they wish to express, without rushing into classifying their music. The new ROME material will cause them the loss of some NeoFolk or Martial Industrial fans... fans which willfully continue to listen to what they like in which respect going astray from the classical line is charged as a commercial mistake or a compromise so great it cannot be accepted! Yet ROME has colossally evolved unintentionally yet accurately embracing the loss of "collateral victims", choosing great accelerated steps instead of the small and classically conservative ones.
Since the release of "MMM", I got used to not expecting patterns because each album has its own story, its own form of poetry and musical expression. Maybe this is the reason why I accepted "Flowers from Exile" easily... Also my curiosity for the new album was growing, especially since the artists meanwhile decided to take a suprising and confusing break, giving up concerts by cancelling the ones scheduled for this year. The only remaining joy is the fact that their last live performance was within Dark Bombastic Evening and their concert was voted the best of the entire event but one will never know how and why... but I still hope to see them on stage again.
"Nos Chants Perdus" seems to be an amount of naphthalened songs forgotten in the recesses of an old nightstand; maybe the name of the album is self-suggesting it, I don't know for sure. The musical aura is now an intimate one full of emotion and gloominess, atypical to any stylized shape which swings between interbellum waltzes and romantic chords heard at night on the banks of the Seine river.
It is clear to me that it is the calmest, quietest, most atypical and powerless album since the dawn of mankind... for some, the album will surely be monotonous, vapid, forceless or apathetic (due to the lack of those martial shades) or maybe dull like a swan song released rapidly with the sole purpose of being "ticked"... maybe for others it will be the bridge needed to discover Brel, Cohen or Cave.
I will not describe the twelve songs because it would be incorrect to storytell about a set of songs that have no junction between them, about a sequantial collage that leads you in a completely different world, as a matter of fact it invites you in a journey through time with an antiquated, interbellum flavor which can still be savory and full of poetry. Less bombastic and rhythmed than any other album, having a visible ambiental acoustic imprint and a minimalistic post-romantic approach, the new album presents us 45 minuts that are almost impossible to describe, but also impossible to misaddress. I will leave you the pleasure of descovering the music of these troubadours!
Having a history of only 5years in which they have released 5albums, ROME proves itself to be a band without prejudice with medium and long term visions and which knows how to intelligently harness Jerome's superb voice while the samples and the rest of the instruments are rendered by skillful musicians. If on this new album one can utterly listen to the accordion, cello and piano, one can only imagine ROME cannot solely be associated to Apocalyptic or Dark NeoFolk... it is now more, much more than just that... it is ROME!
I hope that the band will charge its batteries in the warm monthes to come, especially since Jerome stated that he will enjoy this summer by the seaside while enjoying a glass of fine rum. I will go on enjoying "Nos Chants Perdus".