ALBUM REVIEW: Salo – Circle of Sighs
CIRCLE OF SIGHS look to be one of the more promising and intriguing acts to appear on the doom metal scene in the last few years. Blending a heady mix of doom with a prominent, synth orientated sound, the bands debut EP, Desolate, laid down some fairly solid foundations for the bands sound, turning many heads in the process. Hot on the heels of this EP, the band’s debut full length, Salo, sees the band tighten up their sound further, resulting in a lean, but adventurous, debut album.
Burden of the Flesh opens the album with a lurching, expansive chunk of doom with slick, catchy harmonies, sublime acoustic sections, brooding vocals and haunting synths providing an excellent atmosphere that it’s hard not to get caught up in. It’s a beguiling track that sets an incredibly lofty bar for the rest of the music to surpass. Segue-01 acts as a brief, but effective, interlude that couples soundbites and a solid ambience, giving the music a break before the brilliant Hold Me, Lucifer begins. This track is built around much more prominent synth sections, dense, chugging guitars and soaring vocal passages, which create a deeply atmospheric, and instantly memorable, track with a huge, powerful sound and some great, singalong moments, something that you don’t find often with doom bands.
Kukeri is a sprawling monolith of a track, which utilises cleaner guitar tones and harsher vocals in amongst the core facets of the bands sound that results in a song that is incredibly engrossing despite its length. It’s got a great, space rock feel to it that makes it all the more impressive, adding a classic edge to the music whilst still maintaining a sharper, modern sound. Desolate, with its more noxious synths, brilliant, extensive use of acoustic guitars and magnificent female vocals, is another extremely punchy and memorable track with an angelic, cavernous sound that begins to see CIRCLE OF SIGHS allow some more progressive elements creep into the sound, making for a much more eclectic sound that makes it one of the best offerings on the whole album. Segue-02 is another fleeting, but powerful, interlude that combines a darkly ambient sound with soundbites to provide a noisy, eerie break from the rest of the album.
The Man Machine, a fantastic cover of the timeless KRAFTWERK track, is a really good addition to this album. deviating significantly from the electronic sound of the original, bringing in a huge, monstrous bass sound, light, ringing guitars and subtle, whispering vocals to the song. It’s a great cover, adding the band’s own spin onto a classic piece of music. Unicorn Magic/Segue-03 is a great track that takes on a more classic hard rock approach to the music, with much more rhythmic guitars and a subdued keyboard sound in the earlier parts of the song, which allows the vocals to carry the track at certain points. The more condensed, murky nature of the sound slowly begins to open up, with the acoustic guitars returning to the sound and giving this a much more bombastic sound. This doesn’t last however, and the music slowly but surely descends into a far more chaotic and frenzied sound, with a final, electronic interlude bringing this excellent offering to a close, leading seamlessly into the final track on the record, Salo. This final track takes the music down a far more synth orientated, electronic music route than the songs that preceded it, stripping away much of the doom in the sound, without sacrificing any of the depth to the sound. It’s an amazing way to end an equally amazing record.
Salo is an incredibly powerful and effective debut from a band that clearly shows tonnes of promise and potential. The sound and style of the music is almost completely perfected, and if there’s little, if anything, that can be brought up in terms of criticism for this record. CIRCLE OF SIGHS have managed to carve out their own niche within doom, adopting a style that very few acts even attempt to approach, helping them to stand head and shoulders above the vast majority of their peers within the Doom underground. CIRCLE OF SIGHS have set themselves an extremely lofty hurdle to overcome with this album, and it will very interesting to see how the band are able to best it with their future music.
Rating: 9/10
Salo is out now via Pillars Of Creation Records.
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