A lot of neo-folk lovers already joined the sputtering pyre lighted by singer and songwriter Jerome Reuter, whose experience in different local bands in Luxembourg has blossomed in Rome, his solo-project later propelled by his friend Patrick Damiani, a skilled sound engineer, and they’ll surely appreciate the new creative breeze blowed by Nikos Mavridis, whose violin and strings are almost like new embers going to become perfumed ashes in their brazier. His hallmark could be easily heard in this nice 4-track EP, entitled L’Assassin (the fastest in buying it will also gain a special t-shirt designed for this issue): the stylistic formula Jerome named Chanson Noir – maybe referring to the hybridization of the classical American folk song scheme with elements taken from the French Chanson and that lovely dark-tinged lyricism, which induced some reviewers to propose the linkage between Reuter’s stainless and distraught vocal interpretations and some legendary crooners such as Nick Cave or his ability in storytelling to the one by Leonard Cohen – appears to have been slightly improved by Nikos’ windy strings.

Therefore Rome’s sound seems to be less skeletal than before and even more organic and so evocative to sound almost like a soundtrack of an imaginary movie (an hook partially expressed in wonderful tracks of their recent Flowers From Exile, such as We who fell in love with the sea or the powerful narrative wit of To Die Among Strangers) and the intent to readapt and renew it to the present time seems to be intentional even from some wordy bodies of evidence (if you already know their past work you’ll easily notice that a lyrical apex of the moving song Der Erscheinungen Flucht says "This is a warning, we fall, as stock markets fall, in stone gardens" instead of the previous "This is a warning, we fall, as servants fall, in stone gardens", maybe just to be coherent with the concept of the song whose title means "The flux of phenomena"... ). We could even say they’ve tried to highlight their sentimental veins and you’ll agree with this brief analysis especially if you carefully listen to and attempt a comparison between the original tracks and the revisited ones (the above-mentioned Der Erscheinungen Flucht and the shimmering Der Brandtaucher are taken from their album Masse Mensch Material). Even the less stagy track of this exquisite Ep, One Flesh, features that strong grip potentially driving your tears in you sweetest and deepest naps for its flowing poetry. A more orchestrated and less martial sound which enrich expectations for Rome’s forthcoming issues.