Genre/Influences: Neo-folk, noise, ambient.

Content: After a few intimate and beautiful albums Jérôme Reuter is already back with new work. This EP features 2 exclusive songs and 2 ‘single versions’ of songs that will appear on the upcoming full length. Reuter remains a real work-addict, but for this new album he gets back to Rome’s early years. The ballad & ‘chanson’-style has been replaced by a sonic puzzle of noise while the 2 songs of the new album bring us back to pure neo-folk.

Let’s start with the main part of this release featuring a “Lowveld” and “Highveld” version of “The Colony”. The 1st version is easily going over 20 minutes while the 2nd one is also close to 20 minutes. Rome surprises his audience and fans by a noise approach. The tracks feature multiple parts. It’s a real sound labyrinth, which moves from noise to softer and quieter parts. Rome here becomes more experimental and soundscape-like, but finally crosses over into noise again.

The “Highveld”-version starts with a pray and progressively moves into a heavy noise wave. This track is quite close to industrial-ambient music, but here again we can differentiate the parts. It all moves back towards a soundscape until the music passages began to remind me of the period when Weimar Republic joined in.

The title song coming next and “The Fever Tree” both reveal the good-old neo-folk style of Rome. The vocals production of Reuter is again remarkable, this artist, having a very charismatic voice, appears to be the perfect match with neo-folk music. He sings a deep and sexy half-spoken way. “Hate Us And See If We Mind” is a very efficient track mainly written by acoustic guitar and some extra electronics. “The Fever Tree” comes closer to the ‘chanson’-style of the previous work.

Conclusion: This EP doesn’t reveal all the details about the upcoming album, but both exclusive songs on this release make me think of an artist getting back to his roots while the album-tracks will for sure be more representative for the upcoming work.

Best songs: “The Colony – Highveld”, “Hate Us And See If We Mind”.

Rate: (Elise Din:7/8)ED.

Band: www.jeromereuter.com / www.facebook.com/romeproject

Label: www.trisol.de / www.facebook.com/pages/Trisol-Music-Group/104166526285471