On their self-titled debut, Roma Amor offers eleven tracks of folksy, European cabaret.  Though the band weaves together the expected melange of accordion, throbbing bass, acoustic guitar, and decadent female vocals, they offer something new to the cabaret revival; instead of presenting a polished sound that recalls The Blue Angel or the Kit Kat Klub, Roma Amor sounds more like the kind of band you would stumble upon playing on a street corner or a forgotten beergarten somewhere in Old Europa.  The atmosphere they invoke is more old world than modernist, more volk than elite.  As such, their album is a bit raw.  (Some or all of the tracks may have been recorded live—I can’t tell because the liner notes are all in Italian.)  And yet, where an uneven, rough-edge sonic palette is often a distraction to my ear, it fits the music perfectly.  Bonus points for covering both Marc Almond and Jacques Brel on the same record!

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