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Circle II Circle: Seasons Will Fall

Heavy/Power Metal

3.5/5.0

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Armoury Records / EarMusic
by Craig Hartranft,  01.16.2013

After a three year absence it's great to welcome back Zak Stevens and Circle II Circle with their sixth studio album Seasons Will Fall. It's also great to find the band returning to their classic heavy metal roots, after the curious, slightly subtle, experimentation with alternative metal on their previous effort.

Circle II Circle:: looking so metal.

Generally, and from the start, Seasons Will Fall is an ambitiously heavy album. The first four songs seem to exist only to prove this very thing, with only Diamond Blade having a more notable melodic hook. But the band redeems themselves with the solid groove of the extremely accessible, yet still heavy, End of Emotion. It also contains one of Stevens' best vocal performance. It's definitely the best song here.

You get some more of that groove and melody in Never Gonna Stop and Isolation; a bit more progressive power metal in Dreams That Never Die; possibly a touch of blues within Downshot; and, the only power metal ballad in Only Yesterday. Mostly, as mentioned, Seasons Will Fall is basically straight heavier power metal. Stevens' vocals sound strong and even across the album. The production, typical of a Circle II Circle album, can be a point of contention, somewhere between dry as sawdust and as heavy as the music itself. Frankly, even after several spins, I found myself hovering around corner of ambivalence and interest, unsure whether I liked the album. It will be interesting to hear what C2C fans have to say about Seasons Will Fall.

Seasons Will Fall finds C2C returning to their more traditional, yet heavier, melodic power metal. Yet,even after several spins, I found myself hovering around corner of ambivalence and interest, unsure of whether I liked the album.

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We haven't had a new studio album from Brazil's Angra since prior to the COVID pandemic, 2018's Omni. But the quintet has been busy. In 2021, they released Omni Live in Japan where they have a huge fan base ... [ Read More ]