Search - Circus of Power :: Circus of Power

Great, overlooked 80's rock album - now remastered

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 01/11/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"New York City rockers Circus of Power hit the scene in 1988 with this hard rocking self-titled debut album. Circus of Power was one of a handful of bands around the country that took the better elements of the 80's Sunset Strip "hair metal" sound and left the spandex and lip gloss behind.



Like Royal Court of China, D:A:D, and the Front, Circus of Power was just a level above the average hair metal band. They had a great hard rock sound that balanced melody and swagger, fantastic guitar hooks, and a muscular vocal performance. Their debut album is one kick @ss hard rock song after another with no wimpy ballads to be found. Song titles like "White Trash Queen" and "Backseat Mama" ought to give you an idea of where this band was coming from.



It's a shame Circus of Power didn't get more attention back in the day. They had a lot more to offer than the average Trixter or Danger Danger kind of bands, and rocked a lot harder as well. If you're a fan of the 80's rock sound, you'll definitely want to check out Circus of Power, and this rocking debut is a great place to start.



Edition Notes: Rock Candy reissued the Circus of Power debut in 2009. Like all Rock Candy reissues, it has been digitally remastered. And like all Rock Candy reissues, it's pretty expensive. Still, when you consider how hard the original disc was to find, the reissue is the best option."

The other side of late 80' rock

Bloodbath_and_Beyond | usa | 02/06/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the late 80's, as far as the mainstream hard rock/"metal" scene went, it was as dead and overplayed as possible. The genre was finally earning its accolades...at least some of it was, just in all the wrong places. The L.A. glam rock scene was dominating and even the bands tha had some kind of an edge to them in the beginning were now permanent ballad-eers. When GNR came along, they were a breath of fresh air, they were from LA, yes, but they revived the early 70's trash/glam style of rock (New York Dolls, Slade, early Queen, Mott The Hoople, Aerosmith) and combined it with an aggressive street level hard rock sound. The pop/hair band fans and heavy metal fans that were into the real stuff at the time like Anthrax, Metallica, Exodus, Kreator, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Death Angel etc could get into this. However, another band from the east coast (NYC) melded another similar sounding album one year later in 1988. Although the comparisons image (tattoo's/street wise-leather and denim uniform)wise and sound wise are endless, Circus Of Power's debut has its own sound for sure. Lead singer Alex Mitchell sounds more like Ian Ashbury of The Cult than Axl Rose. And cut throat hard rock gems like Motor, White Trash Queen, Backseat Mama, MAchine and of course the most famous track here Call Of The Wild alone let you know these guys had an authentic talent for manufacturing true spirited direct and no holds barred rock n roll. It was the trashy rock attitude the Dolls 20 years before had. With a hint of more mature compositional skills, the highlight track Needles starts with piano and a more dramatic feel, but its the only time the band dips out of the traditional 'hips swaggering' rock feel that personifies the record. It's also a welcome change (albeit slight) in sound from the rest of the proceedings. The Iggy Pop penned Crazy is a good song but one particular song that I really liked as a fav was Heart Attack. Most people will be famaliar with Call of the Wild, it had a video that got siginificant MTV airplay (when music still mattered to them, remember the original Headbangers Ball?), and they had a few spots on the Morton Downey show. So the song itself was their 15 min, but as you can guess, this is a great underrated and underlooked late 80's hard rock gem. But as the case with bands like GNR, and obviously AC/DC, you dont need to belong to any particular class of hard rock or metal to enjoy them. They transcend every style the genre has to offer, as Lemmy of Motorhead would say, "it's not Heavy Metal, its rock n roll". That's COP. But if you wanna get technical, if you enjoy stripped down, bar-band-with-a-bite, blues guitar derived, driving rock n roll, this album is for you. And if you were around in the 80's and didnt like the LA Sunset Strip scene, and wanted something a little more but had heard Blow Up Your Video enough and Appetite enough times, pick up this semi classic [preferably the 2009 Rock Candy remastered edition]"