Roomer’s Staircase Made of Rope carries flashes of slowcore brilliance

Drawing upon their wide-ranging disciplines as fixtures in Berlin’s experimental music scenes, they found their stride as Roomer, making neo-shoegaze that doesn’t neatly fit the parameters of the genre’s contemporaries. With such artistry, unavoidable nods to Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine exist. Yet their folk and electroacoustic stylings put their music closer to an unearthed Numero Group reissue of an unsigned, cult melancholic alt-rock band. The album’s satisfying progression from heady to weightless guitar introspection, tied together by confessional, sultry murmurs, shows their considered effort to land on a refined set of delicate rock. Today’s Roomer trio of Ronja Schößler, Ludwig Wandinger, and Luka Aron have left their laboriousness behind with Staircase Made of Rope. The title of its predecessor perhaps fits this new chapter better: a concerted effort to improvise and leave their noodlings largely untouched after being recorded. The newfound spontaneity comes as a by-product of their sustained friendship, but without edits made, the music tends to stay in a single lane. None of that is inherently bad. “Something New” is as lively as slowcore can be with its scintillati...