Cirkus-Let the madness begin

Self-produced
2008

Looking at the cover of this CD had me believing they were going to be a glam band of the 1980's variety. Sweden's Cirkus certainly took a few lessons from that sound, but they are far more influenced by 1970's rock and hard rock. Actually it took a few songs for me to warm up to them because they start out sounding jumbled and messy. By "Hard headed woman" they seem to settle in and pull everything together. Cirkus subscribe to a raw guitar sound that adds some much needed to texture to their fairly basic approach. They bring in a variety of influences including T.Rex, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper and maybe even BTO as the push and stomp their way through. I enjoy the guitar tone and see some potential here for certain, but even after repeated plays I still felt cold towards this album. The vocals are going through the steps, but they lack depth and that certain soul that this type of music demands. The music fares much better and the band knows to create some powerful grooves, but they don't always know how to sustain them. On several occasions they launch into a song with some real promise, but then fail to do enough to keep the ball rolling. It was almost like they shot their load early and then tried to tromp through hoping to just skim on to the end. There were just too many moments where the peak came too soon and they just didn't have enough going on to maintain my interest. I liked some of their ideas, but couldn't shake the feeling that could have really benefited from spending more time on pulling together their ideas. So in the end this Cirkus wasn't as fun as the big top variety and they far too restrained to release any kind of madness. Maybe next time though.

myspace.com/rouxdcirkusmusic