The Burning of Rome: Press

The Burning of Rome is an enigma of a local San Diego band. They aren’t the typical, emo-leaning types. Nor do they rely on dated fashion statements so prevalent in the ‘Rock’ scene. In fact one assumes their music would perplex most rock show attendees looking for instant gratification. They are a rock band but they play it through a kaleidoscope of influences–maybe they took Danny Elfman, Frank Zappa, Nobuo Uematsu (composer of famed Final Fantasy role playing video games) and fistfuls of mushrooms to bring the scrambling weirdo contingent their opus, Death Pop to life. An overall impressive and ambitious debut from this San Diego sextet, Death Pop sounds like what Neil Stephenson’s idea of pop music would be inside the Metaverse.

The melody on “For Fear of Time Machines” sounds like a keyboard interpretation of Loggins’ “Dangerzone” riff, with the song itself being shoved through an LSD tunnel that resides in Lynch’s Black Lodge. In between those moments of weird calliope marches, little lunatic carnival barker yells infuse Disco Volante-era Mr. Bungle into moments of temporary lucidity. Dulcimer, reverse vocals, Rhodes piano and violent bursts of guitar pepper each tune in tasteful helpings. I like it the more I listen to it, and I’ll admit the song that captured me was their most traditional, “Cowboy Death-Pop Star,” a tune that sounds like it was recorded on a Fischer Price toy microphone—its also the most accessible of the records 14 tracks.

If you’re bored with the same old album being put out by the same old band in the same old clothes, you’re money or downloading time would be well spent picking up this nugget of eclectic music.

The question you have to ask yourself here is whether or not you're secretly a gypsy vampire pirate. You're not? Do you at least sympathize with gypsy vampire pirates? If so, The Burning of Rome is your Book of Psalms. It's the perfect mix of goth and dance influences to accompany an Edwardian Ball, with enough organs and dark vocals to satisfy Castlevania fans. In a nutshell, this is gaudy and overblown music for the circus of the underworld—but done in all the right ways. MS/theburningofrome.

Personal style: Not unlike the Polyphonic Spree. San Diegoness of Sound: There are seven people in this band. And they make all sorts of arty noises that somehow turn into amazingly melodic music, which is very much like the 1990s avant-jazz punk band, Creedle. Also the clanky songs are Tom Waitsesque, and whether Waits admits it or not, he's a local, too. As big as Waits? That's a very ambitious goal.

Best songs: It's almost impossible to choose since every song is pretty much its own entity. Overall: It's really very difficult to pinpoint what's going on here. Because the only fitting label for The Burning of Rome is circus music. But it's not really circus music because no one would want to listen to 14 songs worth of circus music. Just imagine every genre of music smooshed together and sprinkled with a sense of humor and there you go. Our advice: Awful? Or brilliant? We're leaning toward the latter.

This is what gothic music has come to in the new millennium. I’m NOT complaining, I wasn’t too fond of the goth music of the last couple of decades. Musically, I was very much reminded of Brian Jonestown Massacre, without the more rambling and psychedelic aspects of that outfit and definitely with more humor. I liked that the songs here sound different from each other, and I really like the way the keyboards change from carnivalesque to funereal. I’d recommend it for indie fans in general, especially those who appreciate keyboards and melody.

This band intrigues the shit out of us - they're a seven-piece outfit, and while they might live on the same sonic block as the Polyphonic Spree, they leave you with a lingering feeling that at any point, they're gonna launch into some crazy death metal jam-session and light the stage on fire. Or, they're gonna drop it down a notch and sing you to sleep with a lullaby. Remember the feeling you had when you started delving into some of the deeper solo material that Mike Patton was putting together in his early post-Faith No More days? Not as ENTIRELY carnival-wacky as Mr. Bungle, but close? THAT'S what The Burning Of Rome reminds us of.

The Burning of Rome is what might happen if Man Man crashed a Rilo Kiley concert.

This seven-piece band creates an odd funhouse atmosphere with vocals that are hauntingly similar to Muse's epic, "Knights of Cydonia." "Alexandra" utilizes multitudes of different sounds to discover a harmonic dissonance that somehow works itself out. Fading out with a vastly electronic hum, the impact of this experimental tune lives on even when the speakers are off.

I haven't seen a new band that's this good in a long time... extremely innovative.

Click below to hear streaming interview:

ProTools + oddities = The Burning of Rome. Gaudy, gorgeous harmonies with a very gothic feel. I think it’s the organ that does it…no, no, it’s definitely the organ that does it. Originally intended to be a recording-only project, the band has evolved into a horror/pop/punk theatrical circus. Asks sandiegopunk.com in a recent interview: “What makes The Burning of Rome different from every other band out there?” Answer the band: “What other band do you know of has a screaming glockenspiel player in stiletto heels?” Completely sophisticated, self-made and experimental, this 7-member project is a feat of modern rock and a sight to behold. As it’s so well-put by journalist Sohrob Nikzad: “The question you have to ask yourself here is whether or not you’re secretly a gypsy vampire pirate. You’re not? Do you at least sympathize with gypsy vampire pirates? If so, The Burning of Rome is your Book of Psalms.” Kudos to Art in San Diego for introducing me to this local-to-him band on, appropriately enough, a mix CD. You, however, can find this as the opening track to 2006’s “Living The Lie”, available on iTunes.

Band of the Month Interview linked below.

Did that really happen? Did I just listen to all of that, or was it some sort of awful dream? Did I take opium or some other hallucinogen and pass out? Really, you can tell me. Otherwise I’m going to go ahead and describe the wondrous, frightening, and whimsical sounds I have just heard. Well…okay. You haven’t heard anything like The Burning of Rome’s Living in the Lie. I say that with such confidence, I would be willing to make a bet on it with every cent I’ve ever owned. This is like some sort of hellish combination of a Mario game soundtrack and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” It’s as diverse as the Halloween-organ psych-fest “Race to Build a Bomb” to the much-too-vivid recount of the “Rape of Lucretia.” Found here are a slew of instruments, some you’d find on a merry-go-round, others you’d hear in the streets of Paris, others you hope you’ll never hear again. “Like Frying A Small Fish” sounds like a track of off the “Amelie” soundtrack, featuring rich French melodies. In stark contrast is “Hard Times,” the song of a merry-go-round gone bad. Half a proper album, half a musical (think “The Nightmare Before Christmas” meets “Streetcar”), Living in the Lie is just simply weird. What is this supposed to be? Flexing musical muscles to their fullest extent, no matter where that takes you? A joke? Or simply someone’s idea of what music should be? Not that this is bad music. “Dear Israel…” features great acoustic guitar work, and the majority of the album is well-executed and thought out. It’s just damn weird—that’s all. If you aren’t at least moderately curious to hear what the hell The Burning of Rome sounds like by now, I’ve failed as a writer. Albeit to say: you’ve never heard this sort of music before, and you never will again. You might not like it (actually, 95% chance you won’t), but maybe you will. Just maybe this is what you’ve been waiting for your entire life, and you didn’t even realize it.