Rome
Civitas Solis
Label: Trisol
Genre: Dark / Post Punk / Gothic / Neo-Folk
Availability
- LP 180gr €36.99 Out of Stock
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War is casting its dark shadow over Europe again, as the twenties of this century seem to echo the interwar years, when another world war was looming. Today Ukraine is ablaze from daily Russian attacks, while Europe stands divided on how to position itself in this conflict that often seems like the herald of a far bigger catastrophe to come.
For his musical project ROME, Jerome Reuter chose the fate of Europe as his main subject matter to wrestle with. Since 2005, Reuter has written many songs and concept albums focusing on key moments in European history and which reflect and comment on its myths and narratives. With the artist’s desinvolture, ROME deconstructs historical events and ideologemes in order to analyse them from various perspectives, and only to return them as questions to the listener. Reuter oscillates between half-angry, half-melancholic witness and participant observer, from whose individual-objective viewpoint all things are inevitably charged with pathos. ROME invites us to observe, discern and shudder, but also to be reborn and shine anew, to “walk in brightest black towards the sun”.
Stylistically, ROME uses an impressively broad musical variety on “Civitas Solis”; from chansons in the singer-songwriter vein of Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen and Townes van Zandt, to cold Dark Wave-type accentuated acoustic guitar elements: An alternating bath of martial hymns and introspective ballads evoking key moments in the band’s 20-year history, and which – as all ROME releases – raises questions. Provocative questions: What does the future hold? And what will it mean for Europe? All we can do is brace for what lies ahead, while we are “standing on the Western Wall”, as “men against time” witnessing the storm.
Limited edition, 500 copies