Mario Rom's Interzone - Truth Is Simple To Consume (2017)

In the past years no other young European jazz trio has evoked as many exuberant reactions as the Austrian formation Mario Rom’s INTERZONE. Just recently the sensational energy of their concerts led the young trio to the Montreal Jazz Festival, which was readily combined with another invitation to the renowned Rochester Jazz Festival, where they had played before. And even at these top-class festivals, INTERZONE doesn’t need to shun any comparison: “Interzone were easily one of the most entertaining and scintillating acts at this year’s festival. I have yet to hear a group of musicians – anywhere – with a more serious sense of play!” one of the main critics wrote. Such reactions in the American press are certainly noteworthy for an Austrian band with an age average of 30 years. And the trio, consisting of Mario Rom (born 1990), Lukas Kranzelbinder (born 1988) and Herbert Pirker (born 1981), really has been working inimitably consequently on their unique sound and image these past years. With an instrumentation that might seem unusual at first, consisting of trumpet, bass and drums, the three manage to “merge virtuosity and humor to an entertaining unity” (FAZ [Frankfurt General Newspaper]) and “from time to time create the impression, that there are four, five or even more musicians playing” (Jazzthing). The Süddeutsche Zeitung [South German Newspaper] even went a step further and stated: “From the ideas and inspirations Interzone puts into a single track, other musicians feed an entire career.” Their clear guideline is always an untamable energy paired with their apparently infallible sense for blending all kinds of musical influences with traditional jazz elements. “Everything is permitted” has always been the band’s motto, whom DIE ZEIT [The Time Newspaper] once described as “three young wild ones, marked by a life they couldn’t have had yet and determined on everything.” And INTERZONE really does give you the feeling, that the atmosphere their music conveys outreaches that of conventional ensembles. Through a multitude of elaborately produced videos the three instrumentalists intend to give their music another level, that lets the interested listener dive into a unique world, into his or her own ‘interzone’.

After the two albums Nothing Is True (2012) and Everything Is Permitted (2015) and seven years of band history, Mario Rom’s INTERZONE is now releasing their third album Truth Is Simple to Consume and bring everything they have reached so far to a whole new level. On their new, classic-length,10-track album the Interzone-trio-song melts together into a solitary voice, because Rom, Kranzelbinder and Pirker sound, breathe and live like a single organism. “Our musical awareness,” the trio says, “has unified more and more, to form one bigger picture.” After two albums and countless live shows, during which ideas and inspirations from all genres were always wildly thrown together, INTERZONE managed to capture a directness and intensity on Truth Is Simple to Consume, that already presents itself to the listener in the opening track “Choose Your Vision”. Rom’s exceptional trumpet sound magically flies on Kranzelbinder’s and Pirker’s relentlessly driving grooves on pieces like “Words of Advice” or “Freedom of Thought” and unfurls its full spectrum on “Real Icon”, “Black Cloud” and “Broken Image of Man”. The pieces - all composed by Mario Rom this time - reveal an unbelievably appealing suspense, that lets the listener drift off into other worlds, but at the same time keeps him spellbound, listening carefully for the further development. In musically intimate moments like “Change of Truth” at the latest, one cannot resist the young trumpeter’s playing anymore. Together with Lukas Kranzelbinder on double bass and Herbert Pirker on drums, INTERZONE create a likeness of musical intensity on this album, that consistently reveals new layers over and over until the very last minute. Truth Is Simple to Consume makes the aspiring trio’s status as a fixed star in the jazz scene definite.

"Interzone is almost too much fun, if that's even possible: Lukas Kranzelbinder continues to be one of the most riveting double bassists I've seen, and Herbert Pirker is as nimble a drummer as you're likely to hear. Mario Rom is an absolutely dazzling trumpet player, possessing a distinctive flair all his own. His dexterity on the trumpet was remarkable, dispensing extended melodic runs that were magic, plain and simple." (Daniel Kushner, RCNP)