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May 16, 2011On Rome, they masterfully conjure up a love story fit for the silver screen--shoot-outs and tumbleweeds included.
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May 17, 2011The great, and only, disappointment with Rome is that once you've heard the album, you'll want to watch the movie it accompanies. Except there is no movie.
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May 13, 2011Rome does one better than conjure nostalgia; it puts those vintage signifiers in service of fine, contemporary songs.
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Q MagazineMay 31, 2011Rome has a fascination all of its own. [Jun 2011, p.121]
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May 24, 2011Few records will be made this year with such love and devotion, and you'll be able to tell it too. It's delicious.
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May 19, 2011The pair tracked down musicians who worked on Sixties spaghetti westerns, then added Jack White and Norah Jones as singers, resulting in a delicious album, redolent of easy listening but with all flabbiness removed and replaced by a modern warmth and elegance.
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May 17, 2011Burton's Rome is a fascinating re-envisioning of romance and danger. It has all the components of a classic and makes for the perfect soundtrack to inject something wonderful into a dull day. Richly rewarding.
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May 16, 2011Hopefully, listeners who have had their tastes whetted by Cat's Eyes and the cult Italian Beat At Cinecitta compilations will fall in love with this entrancing and gorgeously out-of-step album.
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May 16, 2011Norah Jones and Jack White sing on three tracks apiece, respectively languid and predatory, the end result being a short but perfectly-formed portal to a different state of musical mind.
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May 16, 2011With such grand ambitions achieved, great music produced, and a five year journey concluded and justified, Morricone would be proud: Rome was well worth the wait.
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UncutMay 13, 2011Unquestionably, it is beautifully done. [Jun 2011, p.80]
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May 16, 2011Even the addition of pop icons to the Rome album can't allow it to rise above its previously stated goals. There is little, if nothing, wrong with Rome, but rather, it is limited by the confines it sets up for itself.
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Jun 14, 2011As a whole, Rome is cinematic without being overwrought, its sound evocative of a certain vintage while still firmly rooted in the present.
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May 31, 2011Of course the question arises: is Rome the greatest thing 2011 will offer? Hardly. Nevertheless, I'll vouch to name it the most ambitious album of the year.
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May 26, 2011Whilst the modus operandi suggests something rather derivative, somehow the album achieves more than fan-boy indulgence; managing to be stylish and atmospheric without being too slick or insubstantial.
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May 19, 2011As much credit as the pair deserve for creating a modern approximation of Ennio Morricone, Rome is more likely to lead to watching one of Sergio Leone's classics than replaying the album itself.
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May 17, 2011Lovingly detailed, atmospheric, and oozing the Technicolor glow of a smoke-stained '70s movie screen, Rome is awfully hard not to cheer for, even when it's stuck on autopilot, as rarely do pet projects feel this alive and sumptuous.
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May 16, 2011For all of its glorious string flourishes, vivid visual allusions, and bursts of choral splendor, the best parts of Rome are truly left to the imagination.
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May 16, 2011Take a finger to your fast-forward button, however, and without Jones' handful of mediocre performances, Rome breezes past with all the tinkling, indefinable intent of a lost Michel Gondry film score.
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May 16, 2011White's natural eeriness and Jones' diffident eroticism certainly fit a sound built around mystical melodrama and chilly Euro heartbreak, but their voices are such complimentary opposites that they turn out to be what gives Rome much of its distinctness, keep it from being just another record collector (or film collector) exercise in getting everything period-perfect.
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May 16, 2011With guests such as Jack White and a surprisingly bearable Norah Jones, Rome makes a fine fist of recreating the elegance of prime 1960s Euro-pop. All good, no bad, and never ugly.
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May 16, 2011More vocal tracks would be nice, but Rome is as much about sublime instrumentals--made of celesta, harpsichord, Hammond organ, strings, nasty funk guitar and those weird-ass choirs--as lead singers, just as Sergio Leone's great Westerns were as much about fantastic landscapes as acting. Just switch your cell to "vibrate" and enjoy the show.
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May 16, 2011Rome has the undeniably high-end vibe of an A-lister's lark. After all, what kind of no-name can book the recording studio once employed by Ennio Morricone?
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May 17, 2011Burton and Luppi don't entirely lose their identities in the desert vistas of Rome--the record has all the crisp conciseness of a Danger Mouse production--but they might have created a better story than a record.
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May 17, 2011While the sounds are fantastic, the compositions tend to slip by, just another Mediterranean sunset.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 26
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Mixed: 5 out of 26
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Negative: 0 out of 26
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May 24, 2011
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May 16, 2011
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Mar 25, 2022