Artist: Circus Maximus
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2007
Folks! There’s way, way more going on behind this album, and not just this album… Let’s start like this! With Circus Maximus, there’s really no joking around. No beating around the bush: Europe has finally got a direct answer to the American “phenomenon” that is Dream Theater. Progressive metal in Scandinavia is clearly in full bloom. There’s Mind’s Eye, Seventh Wonder, Platitude… but none of them has the kind of flawless technical perfection that Circus Maximus have, and with that polish they’re seriously challenging Dream Theater’s turf. Still, there’s (at least) one big and very important difference between Dream Theater and Circus Maximus, one that carves a hard-to-cross gulf between the two bands when it comes to musical expression.
Circus Maximus can absolutely play hellishly fast, full throttle, without missing a single note, everything sounds bulletproof. But unlike Dream Theater, Circus Maximus put the priority on preserving big melodies. They never smash them up with illogical solo escapades, the kind that mercilessly fragment the cohesion of the melodies in Dream Theater, or make it impossible for any motif to stick in the listener’s head. Dream Theater drifted away from that after “Images And Words” (1992), and on this front Circus Maximus are a real balm for everyone who misses “Kevin Moore” era Dream Theater, with European production!
“Isolate” is the follow-up to the band’s debut “The 1st Chapter” (2005). Unlike the debut, Circus Maximus offer fewer clichéd similarities to their great role models Dream Theater. The keyboards are especially venomous in how they pull toward Dream Theater, a blend of what Jordan Rudess should be doing in Dream Theater today in place of the long-gone Kevin Moore (and somehow never manages to), and in this case some of the sounds even evoke the atmosphere of genuine retro “Moore” DT tricks. The combination of Moore and the best that Rudess never gave Dream Theater comes through straight on “Isolate” in the instrumental Sane No More. Pure fantasy, something no Dream Theater are capable of creating anymore! “The 1st Chapter” hid this even less. On “The 1st Chapter” we also got fully orchestral interludes, which pulled hard toward Symphony X in atmosphere. And what exactly are Symphony X? Dream Theater with melody. So that makes Circus Maximus the “European” Symphony X. Maybe so. On the debut “The 1st Chapter”, they still are.
This time, the departure from that, achieved with “Isolate”, is interesting because it pushes even more cohesion into masterfully crafted big melodies, which give the listener a big bone to chew on and simply invite long listening sessions, the pleasure of endless, off-rational drifting through the fullness of the sound and the varied, multilayered stance of a band that has managed to keep a juicy dose of unpredictable twists, flowing into each other motif by motif with totally unstoppable fluidity. This is an album that invites repeated listens and richly rewards them. The band has that magic feeling of charging ahead at full power: fluidly, with high atmosphere, mightily, in layers. All the building blocks reinforce each other and magnify to perfection, and every member of the band is locked onto exactly the same frequency. The focus is unified. The interplay of keyboards and guitars, the cross-fire spewing of venomously oiled, lightning-fast solos, the bombastic rhythm section that keeps gnawing at progressively fractured rhythmic experimentation. Something’s constantly “happening” here! The ultimate, direct proof is the new track Abyss, which, for all this “friction” between so many elements, keeps an enormous amount of melody and tight motivic solidity! Michael Eriksen is a singer you won’t find growing on every tree. This guy has the rare charisma and charm to carry the crystal clarity and sharpness of power of, say, Europe’s Joey Tempest, while in the lines he picks he can’t hide that he looks up to the technical polish of James LaBrie (Dream Theater) and of course the excellence of Geoff Tate (Queensryche).
In its first half, “Isolate” generally surprises with melodic motifs that lean toward melodic hard rock (the chorus in Arrival Of Love, the punchy ballad Zero), which is venomously gripping amid the dramatic melos of strung-together, dynamically ever-shifting, highly vibrant moods. Wither is an interesting and direct hybrid (a pre-chorus with melodic hard rock references, with a Dream Theater “Falling Into Infinity” melody transition right before the chorus). “The 1st Chapter” didn’t stress these touches, but it did carry potential cues that could have hinted at the band developing in this direction. In the second half, “Isolate” spreads its high progressive metal wings through the tracks Mouth Of Madness and Ultimate Sacrifice, and the more compact, shorter firecracker From Childhood’s Hour, squeezed between them, just gets lost.
“The 1st Chapter” served first and foremost to affirm Circus Maximus’ ego. “Isolate” offers even more in that regard. Right now Circus Maximus are the hottest progressive metal band in Europe, especially given their creative momentum. “Isolate” marks the band’s move away from the debut’s clichéd obsession with achieving what Dream Theater can achieve or once achieved. The band got its ego validated by the response of the critical mass. With “Isolate” they’ve outgrown the need for that validation, and it shows in the completely relaxed continuation of Circus Maximus’ evolution, which with “Isolate” is gaining its own clearly recognizable musical voice, and it’ll be interesting to watch how it develops from here. How far can Circus Maximus reach, and what new things can they reveal to us? At this point they’re still a musical unknown, and therefore a hot and irresistibly attractive band!
Lineup
Michael Eriksen – vocals
Mats Haugen – guitar
Lasse Finbroten – keyboards
Glen Cato Möllen – bass guitar
Truls Haugen – drums
Production
Circus Maximus
Tracklist
1. Darkened Mind
2. Abyss
3. Wither
4. Sane No More [Instrumental]
5. Arrival of Love
6. Zero
7. Mouth of Madness
8. From Childhood’s Hour…
9. Ultimate Sacrifice
Album length: 54.58
