Rome
Berlin
4
Do you have time to waste? Believe it or not, I don’t, and I’d also rather not waste your time either, so I’ll make this as short as possible. Berlin, the new MCD by Cold Meat Industry’s recording artist Rome, is billed as being ‘apocalyptic neofolk’. Notice there’s no ‘metal’ in that tagline. That’s because there is no metal on this MCD at all. Nowhere. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And if by ‘apocalyptic’ the label meant "you’re gonna’ want to blow this disc to smithereens for dropping cash for it", then the phrase is accurate.
Not only is there no metal in this graceful bag of self-absorbed goth/trance/ambient cotton balls, it’s brain-numbingly droll and boring any way you slice it, musically. Sisters Of Mercy are heavier than this, The Cure sounds more metal in comparison, and the songwriting feels like an anemic, third-hand afterthought. Even if the intentions were for the best, the addition of repetitive, irritating samples do more to subtract from the strength of these mundanely melodramatic compositions than they do to enhance them. It’s rather ridiculous, especially when mixed with annoyingly looped sound effects, and more pretentious spoken-word fluff than anyone needs to be subjected to. Whatever mood this project attempts to set merely comes across as narcoleptic Bauhaus throwaways on a piano, with attention deficit disorder, and a magpie complex. Not metal, and honestly, not even very good.
I’m trying to be nice, because there’s no reason to give an attitude over reviewing music, but it felt like wasted time after spinning this as many times as I did, and I’m an Opeth fan. I can appreciate mellow, and so can many of you, but this…don’t. Don’t worry about it, don’t think about it again, go back to the mainpage, and move on with your lives. I wouldn’t recommend Berlin to a single reader on this site who isn’t suffering from sleep deprivation. Move along…
