Originally written by Ian Chainey
“Metal is paint on a palette?” you’ll say. “This guy, this guy and his shitty angles!”
Indeed, I’ve reached with angles before, but hear me out on this one. My old music teacher, and all around helluva guy, Dave Graham once said something similar and now I’m expanding on it. See, here’s what we’re saying: Once a genre has been in the public conscious long enough it begins to be used like paint on a palette, strengthening other genres and other aspects of art instead of being used solely to create something that is, say, inherently metal. And, you know, it’s not really surprising when you think about it, is it? (And I’m going to get sued by Ephel Duath, aren’t I?). In fact, I think if we take a trip in the Wayback Machine to the early ‘80s when metal was really starting to fracture, the whole paint of the palette thing wouldn’t exactly draw ahs of amazement from the underground kids with the torn jeans either. Still, it has probably never been as clear to see as it is now, the way the metal has evolved from the style that mainstream critics routinely shat upon to coloring so much of the world around us, maybe without us even realizing it. Heavy guitars are crammed into car commercials, corpsepainted virtuosos star in popular video games, and every movie seems to have that one “ca-razy” kid whose heart beats in blast beats. The loud and proud have never been so well represented in nearly every field of art, from classical composers to fashion designers. And that paint, that I-know-it-when-I-hear-it shade called metal, is at everyone’s full disposal now, filling up whatever canvases they see fit to splash it on. With my best Bob Ross impression I can tell ya this: Someone now might create a happy little groove with some Imperial Blues, a majestic backbeat with some Rosy Rap, and a big flowing guitar line with some Metallic, er, Metal. (Make as many guitar lines as you want…it’s your own little world, your own creation!). You know, paint on a palette, and while that combo above would probably be fucking atrocious, sometimes it works and works well. (Foreshadowing at its worst, folks).
Now, the long shitty intro has a point (at least, it seemed like it did when I wrote it) and that’s to get you in the right frame o’ mind for Circle, a band that makes the word “prolific” seem like it should describe Mission of Burma’s twenty year gap between recordings. Circle’s new one, at the time that this is being written at least, Katapult, takes black metal and fuses it with the band’s usual blend of krautrock, space rock, and general progressive nuttiness, thus birthing something that bandleader Jussi Lehtisalo described in an e-mail to Aquarius Records as “sixties black metal.”
But, realize that there’s not a whole lot of metal here in the traditional sense. There’s a few fast snare rolls, a few cold n’ breezy tremolo strums, a few distinctive OOH!s, and some raspy growls, but it’s all used like a shade of paint (See! See!), something to move their M.O. forward. And, for fans of the krautrock elite (Neu!, Faust, Popol Vuh, etc.), stuff like Tangerine Dream or Goblin, or the proggy weirdness of a Magma-type, this stuff is pure gold. Just hearing the way that they’re able to wrap these tracks around a singular idea, a singular circular riff, is amazing. And, on top of those riffs, we’re talking polyphonic textures galore that are downright hypnotic. Highlights like “Tree On The Higher Mountain” take post-rockers like Tortoise’s obsession with Can and dub to beautiful, ethereal heights, while “Four Points Of The Compass”’s archaic synth work is going to dominate the life of any recent devotee to Zombi’s tributes; all of it just, you know, kind of metalized. And there’s a reason for that. The metal is there as something familiar for us to latch on to, something to help us ease into what they’re trying to accomplish. But, does it work after you’ve fully digested everything?
Sort of. Deeper listens turn the metal component into a bit of a novelty element, something that doesn’t really need to be there to make these songs “great“ since they would be anyway. Certainly, picking out the “influence” early on is a gas, but, later, it becomes distracting, obscuring some pretty neat moments of musicianship with the continued in-joke that starts to lose steam after track four. The lyrics too are meant to be blackened, and the multiple mentions of “fire and ice” sums up the duality of black metal well, but it too feels tacked on. It’s a clever experiment, sure, but the base of these songs are so strong that the parody, no matter how lovingly crafted, is seen as disposable. Still, it’s an ambitious idea and it definitely brings something new to the market. Circle shows that metal’s dark shade can still be used to paint original pictures and in a market that always says they’re starved for originality, producing something that’s actually original is highly admirable. Recommended.
