Opening with the hum of analog tapes rolling, instrumentation inherently indebted to Morricone swiftly intervenes, before the timeless trill of Edda Dell'Orso pipes up, your eyes automatically set to await a rugged Eastwood cocooned in poncho, cigarillo dangling from his sun-chapped lips. As Dell'Orso's signature cinematic howl disintegrates, the tumbledown acoustic of The Rose With A Broken Neck rolls on in like tumbleweed bristling across Leone screen, Jack White's layered vocals perfectly imperfect, same as they ever were. The format of Rome is established largely as a rotation through White/interlude/Jones/instrumental with this order swivelled and contorted throughout, the sumptuous highest of hi-fi employed on Season's Trees as Jones' candied vocals bring an air of insouciance to the record atop lavish orchestration redolent of, well, Air. Triumphant Nyman-ish strings unite with choral swells on the segueing interlude, Her Hollow Ways, whilst the instrumental Roman Blue emulates quintessentially Italian suavity consummately. White's layered vocals again sneer snidely atop acoustic guitars bathed in reverb on the significantly less convincing Two Against One, with Luciano Ciccaglioni's atmospheric guitar theatrics somewhat more genuine on The Gambling Priest, as they swirl oneirically around harmonious sighs and shimmering celesta. Jones reappears on the expansive Black, the track unravelling like a season's worth of vibrant Missoni jumpers caught on crawling rose thorns, Morning Fog emerges amidst Broken Bells-era Burton lyriclessness, and closer The World, featuring White's particularly androgynous shriek, could quite aptly soundtrack the hanging of generally mundane contemporary musicality as Luppi and Burton ride off on horseback triumphantly towards a sepia sunset. For Rome represents perhaps the greatest soundtrack written for the best film never made. Ottimo lavoro.
