ROME is an expansive project created by Jerome Reuter is 2005. Based in Luxembourg, the project is primarily a Neo-Folk band with Industrial and experimental overtones. Very prolific in output, The Lone Furrow is the seventeenth full-length CD. Ever ambitious, there are 123 tracks on The Lone Furrow with multiple guest appearances by singers from some of the Metal greats, including the singers of BEHEMOTH, PRIMORDIAL, RICINN, PALLBEARER and HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY.

The disc starts with "Masters Of The Earth" an ethereal tune with ambient synth and nature sounds blended in. It is a spoken word song that seems to be implying there is a revolution coming and the masters are soon to fall. "The Angry Cup" has spoken word in Polish though most of the singing is in English. The orchestration in the background makes this song feel big. It is epic in its' scope.

This takes us into "The Twain", one of the more straight forward rock style songs. With a harder guitar riff in the chorus, it feels heavier than most of the record. So far, everything else has felt folksier, even when incorporating more rock elements. Again, the impressions this record leaves are strange to me, mostly because there is so much in the album to unpack. There are just so many tones and textures in the music. It is impossible to put this record into a single category.

And that is likely one of the many points of this record. "The Weight Of Light" and "The Lay Of Iria" are spoken word songs with the keyboards putting a haunting sound under the lyrics. Again, ROME uses tones and sounds to leave impressions. And similar to how the album opened, "A Peak Of One's Own" ends the record with an ethereal melody and more spoken word. This is a record that twists and turns through a narrative. Sometimes I felt it was meandering off to some place wasn't where I wanted to go, but it always comes back to center.

I had a hard time figuring out if this album was pretentious rambling or an avant-garde brilliance. Using multiple languages and bringing in multiple singers from some of black/extreme metals greats seems to be a little over the top, but then, there is no official singer in ROME. There is Jerome Reuter, who has run with this for 15 years. The music is coherent and consistent. The songs flow into each other. The guest vocalists bring a flair to the overall recording. I listened to this album dozens of times just to get a more accurate feel for it.

At times, I expected Gregorian chants. It is really hard to pinpoint where this record is going, and that may be the point. I was left with more impressions and feelings than anything else. Maybe that is what the artist wanted. I liked the record, but it is something for a fairly specific listener. This is not my preferred genre, but I am impressed with how deep the record feels. It probably is a little pretentious, but it earns that title by living up to the lofty goals Jerome Reuter was trying to accomplish.