Nine

Norwegian melodic progressive metallers Circus Maximus offer forth their third effort, ‘Nine,’ and manage to strike a rather impressive blend of passionate playing and extremely nice songwriting to offer up one of the genre’s more pleasing but not spectacular releases in a long time.

After an ambient noise intro, the album’s proper first track, ‘Architect of Fortune,’ is probably the most traditional progressive metal-inspired track, its lengthy time allowing for plenty of compositional ingenuity to be tossed around, from impassioned soloing to thundering drum-work over varying tempo changes and various mood change-ups, leaving a nice taste in the listener’s ear. This is also reflected in other traditional prog-like track, ‘Burn After Reading,’ which again features a lengthy segment that allows for numerous transitions, instrumental breaks and a rather . More traditional songs like ‘Namaste,’ which features some of the better thrashing around on the record as it forsakes many of the other interjections usually found on the rest of the album and tends to sound rather impressive, ‘I Am’ with its heavy keyboard accents and soulful crooning on a memorable chorus, and ‘Used’ with it’s fiery intro, raze-like solos and more up-tempo pace make it the album’s most memorable tune, are all there to satiate the fans of more rabid fare that want their Prog faster and upbeat. Usually, these are found in just about all the tracks, but these are the ones that contain the more focused attacks.

One of the main things realized upon listening to this one is the fact that, unlike a lot of progressive bands, this one isn’t afraid to dwell in the more melodic realm, rendering this one more of mellow vibe than would be expected. It makes for a rather refreshing change of pace when listening to sweeping acoustic guitar/piano movements during these songs rather than the more full-on electric instrumentation-based attack that’s normally found in these sorts of bands, and with rather stand-out moments found in such songs as ‘Game of Life’ and ‘The One,’ this innovative feature is a nice surprise which makes this one pretty enjoyable overall. While this can lead to a long listen at times since it’s hardly ever got a lot of energy in it’s tracks, this is more than made-up for with this more laid-back style.

There’s not a whole lot here to dislike, but one aspect does stick out rather noticeably, maybe not to the point of being a detriment but is clearly there. Beyond the soaring vocals, which are clearly a genre trademark, the rest of the music is incredibly muted, as though this was a rushed mix job since hardly anything has any sticking power. While the guitars come through rather clearly, the fact that there’s barely any noticeable instrumentation from the rest of the band sticks out somewhat here as this is very light sounding, perhaps a by-product of the more mellow sound employed and therefore not necessarily a true flaw here. Either way, this is a pretty decent affair and is quite likeable at times.

Circus Maximus seem to have disappeared on us for a bit there. Or rather, five years. Five years is what it took for them to finally bring us their next opus entitled Nine, and while I won’t claim that punctuality is their strong point, I will say that the quality of the music on this made me forget that it had been that long.

Yes, this is a very ornate, structured album full of well written progressive music. Nine is less heavy and catchy than Isolate, which I may have overrated back then but still think is very well done, and overall this is more of a ‘grower.’ It takes a few listens to open up, and at first I will admit I thought this was out and out boring. But time has shown me that it is more than that, with some very enjoyable parts – however, at the same time, I just don’t think it’s up to scratch with their previous works.

The keyboards are more a background instrument, and the guitars are dialed down to more simplistic grooving rhythms, with the progression being in the arcane, winding song structures more than actually flashy playing. Not that there is no flashy playing, but just that it’s dialed down, and the album is separated into distinct parts – you have the proggy epics and the catchy radio-rocking tunes, split very down-the-middle this time. The effect is that this is a more mature album, with songwriting that doesn’t need to show off all the time, but the double-edged sword is that at the same time, it’s just not as engaging.

On songs like “Architect of Fortune,” “Burn After Reading” and the lovely “Last Goodbye” with its excellent hymn-wide chorus, the band sounds enlightened and mature. And even on the hooky “Namaste” and the insanely poppy, yet still sophisticated “Game of Life,” they sound inspired. Hell, I couldn’t point to a bad song on this album, just that the entirety is underwhelming in the long run. Everything sounds strangely subdued and, while the songs are catchy enough, the hooks aren’t stick-in-your-head catchy like last time. At first I thought it would grow on me, but it’s been almost a year and these songs still only provoke a reaction something like “that’s nice,” which isn’t exactly telling of a masterpiece.

I don’t really know what else to say except, the songs aren’t that great. They’re well composed and sound like the band has matured, but there’s not much in the way of excitement. There is a certain cerebral sense of satisfaction attained in almost every song here, a sort of “hmm, how clever!” kind of thing, because they’re all pristinely written and there is nothing wrong with them, but this just isn’t the kind of album you get really worked up about. It’s an intellectual exercise and there’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want something with more fire, more passion…sadly you may just have to play Isolate again.

They certainly took their sweet time didn’t they? ‘Isolate’ looked like the jumping off point for Circus Maximus to go and make a serious name for themselves, but for one reason or another it just didn’t work out that way and its only now, an almost unbelievable 5 years later, that they have finally issued a follow-up.

So, was it worth the wait? Yes. And maybe a little no. But mostly yes. I’ll be honest and say that absence didn’t exactly make the heart grow fonder – as a reasonably big fan of both their first 2 CDs I was never going to forget them entirely, but its fair to say that Circus Maximus had more or less fallen off my personal radar by the time ‘Nine’ rolled around. That probably worked to my advantage for while it is another mostly strong and consistent CD, someone who had been on tenterhooks for the last few years waiting for it would probably feel a few pangs of disappointment that it isn’t quite the meisterwerk the agonising wait could have lead one to hope for.

Comfortably similar to its 2 predecessors, it nonetheless pushes off into a slightly different direction in the same way that ‘Isolate’ did to ‘The 1st chapter’, sounding at once familiar but not stale or, even worse, safe. This outward trajectory naturally makes it closer in style to its immediate forebear, so anyone hoping for a return to the somewhat more epic style of the first CD, with is breathless piano touches and grand symphonic flurries will be met with disappointment.

For the most part the ‘Isolate’ blueprint is followed, with the increased melodic metal/rock vibe of their sophomore effort continuing to shine through, but there is a bit more of an evident separation of approach between songs this time around. That is to say, there are 3 tracks running between 8 and 10 minutes each that throw themselves fully into the world of twisting, liberated prog metal, a few that continue in the vein that most of ‘Isolate’ did of fitting all the proggy knots and kinks into a simplified and shortened song structure, and a few more that are basically melodic rock songs shone through a lens of progressive production and musicianship.

On the one hand there really is a bit of something for everyone, with the hardcore prog heads getting their dizzying instrumental showcases while the front row concert fans get their massive emotional choruses, but on the other there is a bit of a disconnect that results from the more blatant stylistic leaps.

If anything, it is the ‘go between’ songs that seem to suffer, having neither the simple joyfulness of the more simplistic rocking tunes or the more elaborate freedom of their more expansive big brothers. The rock songs actually hold their own quite brilliantly against the more imposing prog behemoths – Mats Haugen finds just the right mix between showy noodling and catchy melody with his sparkling solos and the acrobatic Michael Eriksen remains a superstar in the making behind the microphone.

The contrasting approaches don’t knit together quite as well as ‘Isolate’ did, but ‘Nine’ will be seen as a welcome return from a band who have been out of the game for too long. The weight of expectation may do it a disservice, but on the whole it is a successful progressive metal CD that also has one eye on the rock market, and survives that juxtaposition with little difficulty.

(Originally written for http://www.metalcdratings.com/)