Review Summary: COME ON!
I should despise Circus Maximus; they are exactly that kind of prog metal that gives prog a band name. They got famous by being derivative vanilla prog that didn’t push the genre forward. Their debut album was just a slightly average Dream Theater copying and while the follow up was definitely an improvement, it was still nothing great to write about. However, the band really showed progress with their next album Nine, that took almost 5 years to make. Some might complain that the band got too “poppy”, but the songwriting was simply way more engaging with focus on melody instead of showing off. You can also see this change on album covers. While first 2 albums had tacky covers with pseudo-symbolic nonsense, the new album covers are clean and simple.
It's quite funny how this album was getting revealed. First we got a really solid track "The Weight", this track continues in highly melodic prog style shown on the previous album with strong vocal performance.
However, then followed a massive amount of backlash when the title track was revealed and it’s not hard to see why. This song is hilariously awful. What were they trying to achieve with this? are they really trying to cater to Marilyn Manson fans? Well, they are at least 15 years too late. The funniest part of the song is by far when the singer shouts “COME ON!” between verses. It just comes out as really awkward.
The third shown track “Pages” is nothing special, just your typical chugfest, even Eriksen’s vocals seem weaker here.
So we got one great track, one awful and one okay one, how does the final album turn out?
That’s pretty much how it did, this album is basically moments of brilliance sandwiched between moments of cheese or mediocrity (although none as bad as title track).
Take the longest track “After the Fire” for example, it starts with lame keyboards sounding straight out of an early Depeche Mode song, but quickly gets up with great guitar riffs. Then we eventually get to an absolutely awful keyboard solo, luckily the track manages to recover in the last minute. This track would definitely benefit from being shorter.
The best track on the album is by far "Loved Ones". Apart from some cheesy synth work, we got a very powerful ballad here. The guitar solo at the end followed by piano section is definitely the highlight of the album. On the other hand, the simplistic track “Flames” just feels like a throwaway song that is neither progressive nor metal.
The other notable tracks are “Highest Bitter”, with a catchy chorus but an awful pun in the title, “Remember”, which leans towards pop sensibility a bit too much, and the wonderful closer “Chivalry” with a great use of strings and choir.
While instrumentally Circus Maximus were never a really outstanding band, one thing that really makes them stand out are the vocals of Michael Eriksen, his voice manages to hold together even the weaker moments of the album and it stil sounds strong here.
The lyrics deal with their usual themes such as morality, humanity and love, and while they sound a bit corny, they are positive and complement the music well enough.
It is quite difficult to rate this album, it really depends if you include the crappy title track or the solid bonus track “Loath”, but while the album is a slight step backwards, it is still more overall interesting than the first two. Old fans will complain that band is selling out, but I’m glad the band is finding a new direction.
