“When was the last time you spent more on a pair of bindings than you did on your snowboard? Never? Yep, same here. The all-new Black Labels come in at £30 less than I bought my first car for, but I suspect you’d get a lot more mileage out of these things than I did from my 1.2, 1999, three-door Renault Clio.

A lot of the budget has gone into that industry-first over-moulded high back. It’s a sort of two-in-one design, where the upper portion of the highback delivers the kind of smack in the arse you’d pay top dollar for in a Thai massage parlour, while the lower section keeps the binding feeling pretty forgiving when moving laterally along the board.

It’s a pretty smart idea and one that I definitely felt, switching between high speed carves and flatlanding around the piste, but you’ve got to be a seriously demanding all-mountain rider to fully benefit from this. For me, the asymmetric design on something like the Katana’s sufficed just fine. Still, you’ve got to admire what Rome have achieved here. I have several boards and only one pair of bindings. The Black Labels should appeal to exactly that kind of rider – one who wants completely uncompromising performance wherever they find themselves on the mountain.

“They’re the kind of bindings that raise the bar for the entire industry and will no doubt pave the way for future R&D and innovations”

In a similar vein, the AsymWrap heel-hoop is a brilliant tweak to the conventional binding chassis design. Placing two points of contact on the inside and only one on the outside compliments the technology going on in the highbacks. You have the freedom to move around and get a bit looser with your riding to properly tweak out and slash your way over features, whilst still feeling contained in a responsive and powerful basplate.

There’s so much going on with the Black Label bindings. Just like the Katanas, there are an infinite number of ways to dial in the fit and tweak the performance characteristics – it’s really up to you how far you go with that.

Performance, fit, and feel wise, there is absolutely nothing to fault with the Black Labels. They’re the kind of bindings that raise the bar for the entire industry and will no doubt pave the way for future R&D and innovations. If you’re happy to spend big on one pair of bindings, then get stuck in to them. If you currently ride with two different sets and want to consolidate, these are a win-win solution. If you’re just loving the sound of how good these are, but not sure how to justify the jump up in costs, I totally understand. Although, having ridden them, I can tell you that they do live up to the hype.”

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