‘When She Comes Around’ is the first track to be revealed from No Rome’s highly anticipated debut album It’s All Smiles, set for release on Dec. 3 by Dirty Hit.
Recorded in a small apartment in No Rome’s hometown of Manila after the pandemic prevented him from returning to London, the album was co-produced by Rome with BJ Burton (Kanye West, Bon Iver, Charli XCX) and George Daniel (The 1975).
In every sense of the phrase, It’s All Smiles finds No Rome returning to his roots, both in terms of location and influences. As is immediately obvious from “When She Comes Around,” the record is the most refined expression of Rome’s self-coined term ‘Shoegaze R&B’.
Vocal lines are indebted to the intense emotions expressed in R&B and run beautifully across highly textured production and instrumentation.
Like Kevin Shields, the architect of “My Bloody Valentine,” No Rome paints with his production, taking straight-forward guitar playing and complicating it with the tools at his disposal.
“When She Comes Around” arrives with a dark, atmospheric video, filmed in Manila and directed by Paco Raterta that provides the perfect visual accompaniment to the track.
Speaking about the single, Rome says; “I made this song after watching the Bjork live version of her album Vespertine and I wanted to make a song that was heavy on the strings but after days of working on it I eventually brought it to a more guitar-driven song.”
“I sent this song to BJ and he came back with something much more than I expected, with more textures and stronger bass sounds and just better structure really and we just went crazy on it,” the musician ended.
