The Circus Maximus

Manilla Road have only released one album since 1982's Metal that I didn't much like - and that's Atlantis Rising, their first reunion album and successor to 1990's The Courts of Chaos. Wait a second - where did Circus Maximus go? It was released between Courts and AR, and I've rated it lower than the later...right? Well yes, those are both technically true, but what is arguable is whether this is a true Manilla Road album. Some would say yes, since it's clearly released under the Manilla Road moniker. However, that wasn't Mark Shelton's intention, nor does he consider it an official Manilla Road album, and since he pretty much is Manilla Road, neither do I. That said, there are strong songwriting similarities in the stuff that Shelton wrote (obviously), so the album shouldn't be completely discarded; rather, it's a bit disjointed like 2005's Gates of Fire - except even more so. GoF was like three mini concept albums, with different overarching themes but still fairly strong musical similarities as everything was written by Shelton. Circus Maximus takes it a step further - rather than three different albums by the same band, it's more like three different albums by three different bands. One is Shelton - Manilla Road maybe, it's pretty close anyway. His tracks are "Throne of Blood", "No Sign From Above", and "Forbidden Zone".

Unsurprisingly, these tracks are mostly pretty good, with the exception being "No Sign From Above", which is a pretty upbeat rocker, unfortunately pretty banal and generic as well; if it was something along the lines of "Aftershock" I might actually enjoy it a bit, but it takes more from the "Feeling Free Again" playbook, and unfortunately it just outright sucks, other than Shelton's vocal performance. The production here is also quite good - this is true of the entire album. It's a bit less "metal" than it could be, but then again only 5/11 songs here are metal, and it's not as if it detracts much from the metal songs. The guitar tone is pretty organic, albeit a bit less sharp than we're used to from MR, and the vocals are a bit more upfront, but the drum sound is great and ultimately I have no production complaints.

"Throne of Blood" and "Forbidden Zone" are very much in the style of MR, sounding a bit like Mystification with touches of Mark of the Beast. "Throne of Blood" combines thrashy, aggressive verses with a soaring anthemic chorus; the combination actually works pretty well, and though I've heard complaints about the backing vocals I think they do a good job of complementing Shelton. The lyrics are also cool as hell, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth (!), with lines like "Three witches told me of this at the start/They said it would be the death of my heart" and "The ghost of the king that I have slain/Comes tormenting me again and again." Overall it works very well, and I'd recommend it to any MR fan. Certainly better than Jag Panzer's Thane to the Throne, the only other metal work I know which explores Macbeth. "Forbidden Zone" retains the backing vocals in the chorus but it's softer and more drawn out, a sprawling epic somewhat akin to "The Ninth Wave" or "The Books of Skelos". The lyrics are a bit cheesy here, but that can be excused as the music is excellent, with huge, sweeping passages evoking the atmosphere of "Epitaph of the King". While not as good as that song, it captures a similar spirit and does an excellent job. Anyway, "Epitaph to the King" is my favorite MR song ever, so it's hard to compare to that one.

The second "band", or rather, the second musician, is Aaron Brown, who performs on the tracks "Spider", "In Gein We Trust", and "Hack it Off". Thankfully, even though his songs don't sound much like MR, he's a pretty solid songwriter and performer - in fact, he has a better record on this album than Shelton (3/3 solid songs vs. 2/3). His style is pretty interesting, with a penchant for dark, gory, off-kilter thrash. "Hack It Off" is the most straightforward track, with blistering thrash riffs and quickly delivered, often yelled vocals, but it still works very well in parts - the solos especially are great, and the riffs are mostly good. The yelling is a bit sub-par, but when he switches to a more melodic vocal approach it works well. Not a great song, but solid, definitely worth checking out.

"Spider" is a rather strange number, with a creepy opening bass line and whispered, ethereal vocals from Brown. I'd be surprised if Shelton didn't have a hand in writing this song really, as one riff sounds pretty distinctly like MR, although overall it's pretty different. Brown's performance is all over the place, from the aforementioned whispered, to more aggressive yells, to tortured-sounding shrieks and even a Freddy Mercury-esque croon of the titular word. Seriously, his delivery of "Spiii-eyeeeee-duuuuurrr" really caught me by surprise, but it's pretty sweet. "In Gein We Trust" has an equally weird delivery, but it's more consistent here; he uses a similarly over-the-top, morbid warble here - it's really hard to describe, except maybe "Anthony Lionetti goes doom metal", if you've ever heard Matthias Steele's Haunting Tales of a Warrior's Past. Again, it seems like Shelton may have had a hand writing this, as some of the earlier riffs sound MR-ish, but the latter half of the song is very unique. The performance seems pretty tongue-in-cheek and theatrical, another reason I think of Lionetti, but it's definitely awesome. It goes from a dark children's tale of the mysterious Gein to an embodiment of his ferocity, and back again. The lyrics are also really cool, especially the infamous line "Human nipple necklace, you're a scream Mr. Gein!". Definitely one of the better songs here.

Given how I've described the first two portions of the album, you may be wondering why I gave this album such a low score, and unfortunately here comes the portion of the review where I tell you. Andrew Coss, the third musician, has the highest number of songs on this album, and he's also completely terrible. He performs on all the tracks I've yet to cover, and they range from really mediocre to utter horse shit. He plays really, really bad AOR, and I'm not just saying that because it's AOR. This is like Journey except none of the musicians are talented, it's not catchy, and it's not even entertaining - it takes itself way too seriously, which is a shame because it's hilariously bad. There is no redeeming material here unless you're really, really into 80s AOR, and even then I still think you're going to have a hard time enjoying this. Just do yourself a favor and skip all of the Coss tracks. Seriously. Overall the album is decent, just extremely uneven. If you take the Shelton and Brown tracks (minus "No Sign From Above" unless you like his banal rockers), you have a pretty sweet mini-album/EP, just make sure you skip the other half of the album, it blows really, really hard. Again, not really a Manilla Road album, but pretty enjoyable for what it is - I wouldn't mind hearing something else from Brown as he seems to have a lot of potential, but the tracks here - especially "In Gein We Trust" - are quite good.

Manilla Road - Are without question True Epic Metal Gods, but hey this isn't 'official' Manilla Road material, yes... so don't expect anything of their original distinctive Epic 'Sword and Sorcery' sound.

...That's right; this was originally a Mark Shelton solo project known by few as 'The circum maximus' in the early 90's, but just before releasing the album on their label Black Dragon as their debut self-entitled The Circus Maximus the record label decided to change the name back to Manilla Road, in an attempt to increase popularity. After releasing the album in 1992 the band broke up, until being revived in 2001 with their original epic sound.

So? What can someone expect from Circus Maximus?

Well the best comparison i can think of is Saxons' mid-career albums, with a trace of progressive rock, ambience and glam, yes...glam rock.... by this I mean most if not all the tracks have a trace of glam and a kind of happy pop style. The idea sounds scary doesn't it? However it works very well.

The Circus Maximus is a nice listen, very experimental, unique and avente-guard, although the idea of pop and glam to metalheads may be looked down upon, it is not the same with this cd! Manilla Road keeps their heavy metal talent with them. Elements of funk, death and doom can also be heard throughout this album, so as you can tell a hell of a lot of styles can be heard on this album, to make it very different and kind of comical. Although this is not their epic style the mix of ambience and different styles of rock/metal work brilliantly together.

The only negative comments about this album is their change in lyrics and overall theme, no epic, fantasy themes are involved here, it would of been great if this cd could of kept the fantasy theme and been more light-hearted/poppy. The music itself though doesn't deserve many complaints, however i have to say the vocals have changed and sometimes are very annoying (especially track one), they are more now lighter and slightly more operatic.

Overall The Circus Maximus is a brilliant listen, and you will understand Manilla Road have talent playing in more areas then their usual epic style. However this cd is not recommended for metal purists or those into the darker or extreme kind of metal! It is just too commercial and fun.

Highlights of the album: Track 2 - An 8 minute song with a great atmosphere and percussion interludes. Track 10 - Another long song, very powerful...yet soft and heavy at parts, great musicianship.

Overall 80/100