Labels: Robotic Empire
Review by: Alex Deller
Circle Takes The Square are one of very few bands spawned from the muddied “screamo’ genre over the past couple of years to have actually attempted anything different. Fact. Love them or loathe them there is no denying it. With this, their first full-length release, the style they’ve forged for themselves remains true, and the envelope is pushed a little further.
For those who’ve yet to hear them, CTTS take a standard Portrait-esque skeleton and flesh it out with some truly grandiose theatrics along the lines of Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth. Huge, churning riffs that writhe and stutter beneath the weight of yelled female vocals and a schizophrenic male voice that darts between sounding like an evil hobgoblin and Conor Oberst’s miserable, undersexed twin brother, all uttering breathless, well-crafted and bookishly evocative lyrics. The music rises and falls unpredictably, staggering between abrasive noise and contemplative picking pieces, stopping and starting on a knife edge, periodically interspersed with atmospheric electronica and nervous rattlings. Whether the noise tumbling from the speakers is a turbulent tornado of daggers or a chanted piece of eerie solemnity there’s no denying the fact that this album is loaded with pretence and pomposity. This is not a grubby-knuckled punk record with all the grit left in. But somehow that is how it was supposed to be. The spit and polish paid off, and what is left is an epic work of baroque screamo genius that is sure to be loved and hated in equal measures.