As Killing Joke stated whilst looking for ‘Sanity’ “So let the sunrise light up the distant shores and we’ll remember last days of Rome again.”. It seems to be these days of Emperor Constantine The Great that Polish band MRome are looking at with limited information that is available on them. It’s time to throw the rulebook out the window again with 4th album ‘Barbaric Values’ which centres on “the moral and ethical conflict between socially imposed conditions and primordial nature of man.” It’s not just subject matter that needs deciphering here but also the music itself from this studio only based project who shun most publicity in the internet world. One might as well be an augur in ancient times trying to get to the root of everything here via watching birds in flight, it’s certainly a heady task as is the music which the trio seem to be adept at reinventing as they go along.
Some would classify their music as thrash and with last album ‘Leech Ghetto’ there were many Gothic tropes that grabbed my attention. Here though it’s ever shapeshifting as we delve in via a dub laden start on opener ‘Heart Of Hearts’ and move toward what is best described stylistically as groove metal. That groove is enforced by strong bouncy bass heft with the drums equally moving with accompanying elasticity. Over the top we have the throaty rasp of singer Key V who at this stage is vocalising in English and a sudden burst of fragrant harmonica, which could be straight out of a Ministry song. It’s all catchy stuff and as by pure coincidence with the next track which I realise is called ‘Inviting Birds’ I wonder if I was on the right track with what I said earlier? The fretwork is choppy, never standing still but this is not too heavy, fast or confounding.
You never know what is coming next here although it all gels in a cohesive whole. Some delicate guitar moves into pounding bombast and there’s almost a djenty jauntiness about the strangely named Vexierkasten. Apparently, this is, from what I can discover, ‘obscene graffiti” and fittingly ends with what sounds like a growled out “cunt.” ‘Mama’ gets its groove on allowing the listener to nod along in appreciation. The bass run has a bit of familiarity and at times I am thrust back into early Faith No More as it takes me somewhere from Out Of Nowhere. Having said that though the vocals couldn’t be further afield and reside completely at the other end of the spectrum as they snarl with gravid distemper. We move to Polish for ‘Srebrne szalki’ and apparently the source text is Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia, an illustrated collection of short stories, which looks as intriguingly surreal as the music itself. The Polish annunciation really move this into an ‘Eastern European’ direction and here have a really authoritative tone which is somewhat reminiscent of Big Boss from Czechia band Root. I’m not even going to try and get beneath the meaning of ‘Penis Fencing’ but the music is certainly athletic and springs up and down like a gymnast at an Olympic event’s toilet.
Glitchy electronica is the next stop off as ‘Balance Of Power’ moves and chugs to what sounds like a natural conclusion but the band are not done with us yet. The clip-clop of a horse on cobbled streets and guitar lines that is the end instrumental piece is as the title ‘The Torun Horse’ suggests based on Béla Tarr’s “A torinói ló” soundtrack by Mihály Vig. It’s perhaps a bit too long for its own good but the melody is hypnotic and as you have already gathered MRome are not ones to play by the rules.
No right or wrong answers here I guess, go with the flow and try and make sense of it all. That said, I have probably enjoyed this most out of the album’s I have heard so far from this curious and experimental project and this has certainly kept me on my toes.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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