For twenty years Jerome Reuter, operating under the moniker Rome, has remained one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary dark folk. His meticulous approach to concept driven songwriting, paired with an enduring commitment to literature, history and the philosophical left field, has attracted a devoted global following. Fans from Berlin to Los Angeles, from Sydney to Saigon, and from Lisbon to Kyiv have embraced his work with a rare intensity, forged through relentless touring and a steady stream of narrative rich albums.
Rome’s Australian audience grew significantly following his August tour, which marked a key moment in the project’s twentieth anniversary celebrations. As that milestone year closes, Reuter now shifts focus to a new creative phase with the simultaneous release of two studio albums, The Tower and The Hierophant, on 19 December.
The Tower represents Rome’s continued evolution into a refined, minimalist form of folk, delivered with carefully balanced arrangements and a lyrical approach shaped by a broad sweep of literary influence. Reuter has long drawn on authors including William Burroughs, Bertolt Brecht, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Emil Cioran, Hermann Hesse and Ernst Jünger. Their preoccupations with human struggle, transcendence and disillusionment inform the thematic spine of The Tower.
At the heart of the album lies Rome’s ongoing fascination with the concept of the Great Work, a symbolic path of sacrifice and illumination. The tower itself operates as both metaphor and mythic structure, a lone fortification set against cultural decline, standing on a rocky rise connected to the mainland by a thin stretch of sand. Reuter frames this arc as a personal and spiritual vantage point, a place from which a solitary observer surveys the vastness of the world while holding firm against erosion of value.
The Tower is an introspective album that asks listeners to move with patience through shadow, silence and resistance. In a cultural environment driven by noise and convenience, Reuter offers a countercurrent built on difficulty, clarity and contemplation. The album’s tone is austere yet inviting, drawing on the long lineage of European folk and Chanson that shaped Rome’s sound during its earliest years.
The tracklisting further emphasises the album’s conceptual breadth, moving from The Twine And The Twist to the closing piece This Hour Her Vigil, each song forming a stepping stone across the album’s reflective terrain.
The Hierophant stands as the companion volume to The Tower, serving as Rome’s final release for its twentieth anniversary cycle. Where The Tower looks inward from an isolated vantage, The Hierophant addresses a wider spiritual landscape, guiding the listener through a symbolic and ceremonial journey.
The album opens with Secret Harbour and moves through passages such as The Harvest Is Not Here, Days Of Assembly and On Sorrow’s Embankment before reaching its conclusion in Apollo Of Hyperborea. Reuter positions the album as a pilgrimage through myth, memory and ritual, invoking the figure of the hierophant as a keeper of ancestral law and interpreter of sacred truths.
Musically, The Hierophant revisits the stripped back folk idiom of Rome’s earlier material yet expands it with subtle percussion, spectral strings and finely textured guitar work. The tone is contemplative, framed as an aural rite of passage that invites close listening and repeated immersion. Each track unfurls like a coded scripture, cut with symbols and hidden meanings.
Together, The Tower and The Hierophant operate as a dual statement, each illuminating the other. They are separate works but intended as a single artistic event, marking Rome’s transition into its third decade with ambition and purpose.
Tracklisting, The Tower
CD Edition
The Twine And The Twist
To The Great Work Only
Twilight Leaves
The Lighthouse And The Catacombs
This Slaughter Behold
Remember To Dare
Mine Were Of Marble
The Baron (Ordeal By Fire)
Ire And Troth
This Hour Her Vigil
Vinyl Side A
The Twine And The Twist
To The Great Work Only
Twilight Leaves
The Lighthouse And The Catacombs
This Slaughter Behold
Vinyl Side B
Remember To Dare
Mine Were Of Marble
The Baron (Ordeal By Fire)
Ire And Troth
This Hour Her Vigil
Tracklisting, The Hierophant
CD Edition
Secret Harbour
The Harvest Is Not Here
Days Of Assembly
On Sorrow’s Embankment
The Chalice And The Blade
When Light Be Gone
The Great White Hopeless
My Frail Ambassador
The Gods Are Slow To Forgive
Apollo Of Hyperborea
Vinyl Side A
Secret Harbour
The Harvest Is Not Here
Days Of Assembly
On Sorrow’s Embankment
The Chalice And The Blade
Vinyl Side B
When Light Be Gone
The Great White Hopeless
My Frail Ambassador
The Gods Are Slow To Forgive
Apollo Of Hyperborea
Rome will release The Tower and The Hierophant on 19 December.
Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Be the first to see NOISE11.com’s newest interviews and special features on YouTube. See things first—Subscribe to Noise11 on YouTube
Follow Noise11.com on social media:
Bluesky
Facebook – Comment on the news of the day
