Now I am a firm believer that first records play with advantage. I am considering here ‘Berlin’ an extension of ‘Nera’, but the explanation of my previous statement is pretty obvious. Say when you write your first record you are 25 years old. It means you’ve had all that time, in one way or another, to be influenced by various things, to explore, discover, listen, silence. It means that you have a clear idea of what you want your project to sound. Basically this way I want to defend two postures. The first one is that the second record is mainly the most difficult. The second is that, frankly, it is difficult for me to believe that ‘Confessions d’un voleur d’ames’ is all new material – and not only for the short amount of time between records. Most of the sounds in ‘Confessions…’ are very similar to ‘Nera’, and even the construction of the record mirrors the distribution of Jerome Reuter’s first long play. Now, either he is hyperactive, and goes into the league of a famous Dane with Larsen as his last name (and I am not speaking of OTWATM) or he is using material that was already written. Both possibilities have their drawbacks. The first one means that Rome has found its style and chosen to repeat it. The second one means this record is sort of a sweet deception. Nonetheless, this entire dissertation is only a previous to the review. Whatever the explanation is for ‘Confessions …’ being a slightly weaker version of ‘Nera’ I am still going to reason and try to convince all of you Rome non-believers that it’s an excellent record.
First, the inevitability of melody. Mr. Reuter has perfected his capacity of dragging his opaque and coarse voice over his compositions, overflowing with ominous words and brooding images. When hope seems to be completely sucked into oblivion, there is the need, the growth, and the creation of melody. A suave chorus, a powerful line, sung, in a hopelessly lyrical way. Definitely less that in ‘Nera’, where the melodic changes were unexpected over every turn of page, but still extremely effective. For example, ‘Querkraft’, where the chorus is dragged into the song, as if it really were constrained to be there and share its crystalline nostalgia with the listener. Or, as an even better example, we can take the dual chorus in ‘The torture of detachment’, swelling and extending one into the other out of pure necessity and persuasiveness.
Next stop is the guitar work. Combining various influences, its presence has hardly lessened in this record, where the chord instruments appear the steal the entire essence of the song. The melody carrying has been transported somewhat to the long aching notes of synthesizers, violin and other instruments, but it is still the guitar work that constructs the core of most of the songs. One only needs to listen to the naked notes of ‘The torture detachment’, the folk touch of ‘The Consolation of man’, the burning notes of ‘The joys of stealth’, the clear and stumbling notes that hang in ‘Wilde Lager’.
Of course, as mentioned in ‘Nera’, we can’t overlook the lyrics. A perfect mixture of bitter sarcasm already over-ripen, longing and melancholy – the overcome combines a crude sensibility with a tearing sense of impossibility and stagnancy. Some of the statements have the form of conversations or brief stories, and they are all intimate and clear. Rome even manages to pull of an almost impossible rhyme in ‘The torture of detachment’ with “I’m still wondering whether are actions are ever completely pure. How could I be sure?”. ‘Novermberblut’ deserves a special mention with one of the first straightforward statement of Rome’s work. “Now everything just seems about to break. ‘Cause people don’t need proof when they have faith. [...]“, as does the simple beauty of “Things can never emerge from words” that ‘L’adieu aux anciens’ leaves us.
As a surprise come the sound of ‘Le voile de l’oubli’, with its strong repetitive base lines, a tease between a coquette vals and bellicose sounds. And the visceral, abrasive sound of the almost empty ‘Novemberblut’, constructed roughly solely by noises, thumping, taps, samplers and a sometimes-invisible melody. Where Rome is not brave is in the use of samplers. He has mastered its use, and falls back onto them as a counterpoint for the leading voice, as a solo highlight in the song, and as a backing ‘leit motiv’. Samplers have become almost as indispensable as Jerome’s own voice in every song. But this is working with over a previously trodden path, and it tarnishes the brilliancy of the work.
For the more ‘classical’ sound lovers there are some alluring touches. ‘The consolation of a man’ walks farther into the Death in June heritage than ever before, with ghosts of the ‘Golden wedding of sorrow’ floating and swaying around the turn of many notes. Counting on a powerful chorus, the combination of post-industrial percussion, clear and dark piano melodies and the overpowering voice, this song can appeal to many dark folk lovers that had previously shunned Rome for its fragile pop touch. ‘Der Wolfsmantel’ walks into a repetitive militaristic percussion line sheltered by apocalyptic and dramatic melodies, giving yet another significance to ‘military pop’, besides the catchy Derniére Volontè and the foreboding Puissance.
I can’t defend ‘Confessions…’ as being better than ‘Nera’, mostly because I think it is less original. However, this is a comparison between two snow-white stags, and in a forest filled with small birds, hedgehogs and blind moles, they are still a striking king. Rome repeated a formula, but the formula that they alone have created, with its admirers and haters. And the basic ingredient of the recipe, the one that threads everything together like a silver binding and gives sense to all the different pieces is the imbedded melancholy in every song. At any moment – whether it be laying in bed on a rainy day or walking down a full noisy street full of wrath at the every-day wars we choose not to fight-, if one closes their eyes for just a second and turns up the volume of the ‘Confessions d’un voleur d’ames’, the world will become a delightfully poetically grayer place, where idleness, frustration and cynicism make a smile creep on your face.
“We’re clubbing traitors in green summer fields. Reality is changing color.”
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