January 2, 2013

Into the second half of my countdown and the number 10 spot belongs to an album that took me a long time to fully appreciate.

Links to the previous 10 days can be found at the bottom of this post.

Circus Maximus
‘Nine’
Frontiers Records

Indeed, when I first listened to this record, the Norwegian proggers’ third studio album, I felt mildly disappointed. But that’s one of the beautiful things about music – the ability to grow and surprise. Given that I was asked to review it for Powerplay Magazine, I was required to give ‘Nine’ a fair listen. And the more I listened, the more I liked. Now I love it.

Initially, on the face of it, ‘Nine’ is a solid progressive metal record albeit with fantastic vocals but if you give it time, it becomes so much more. Part of the problem (or the charm, depending on your viewpoint), is that Circus Maximus can be very subtle and so it takes time to discover all the little ingredients that make this a top 10 album.

Blending some shredding progressive metal riffs with sections (almost entire songs) that verge on AOR and melodic rock as well as epic numbers full of big hooks, technical wizardry and instrumental tangents, Circus Maximus’ ‘Nine’ is a quality album from start to finish. Oh, and did I mention the cracking vocals?!