SAVAGE CIRCUS „Dreamland Manor”

Music: Power Metal
Country: Germany
Website: www.savagecircus.de
Duration: 54.52


Cool Songs: Evil Eyes, Ghost Story, Born Again By The Night, When Hell Awakes, Tomorrowland, It – The Gathering

The existence of Savage Circus is a rather interesting tale. In April of 2005, Thomen Stauch, long time drummer with German power metal kings Blind Guardian decided to quit the band. Whether this was of his own volition, mutual agreement or whether he was pushed is something only Thomen and BG can answer. What we do know is that Thomen never intended for it to be this way.

In the (long) down time between BG’s ‘Night at the Opera’ (2002) and their new one (slated for later this year), Thomen had been working on ideas for a side project – ideas that he had trouble fitting in with the direction of the next BG album. So what’s a man to do? Well, with help of good friend Piet Sielck (Iron Savior) Thomen hooked up with two members of Sweden’s ‘Persuader’ (Jens Carlsson and Emil Norberg), who’s album, ‘Evolution Purgatory’, was produced by Sielck and just happened to bear a rather uncanny resemblance to…you got it…Blind Guardian. Thus ‘Savage Circus’ was born.

With the tyranny of distance truncated via the power of the internet, most of ‘Dreamland Manor’ was composed and developed via the swapping of MP3 files and the convenient use of Sielck’s own recording studio. At this point, Thomen was still in Blind Guardian as his main priority and intended to remain so. However, just before the final mix of ‘Dreamland Manor’ Thomen and BG decided to part ways. I’m not looking to create friction here, but if the other members did get a ‘listen’ to ‘Dreamland…’ then it is perhaps understandable that they had some issues with Thomen. Not only does ‘Dreamland Manor’ sound like early Blind Guardian, but it also sounds waaaay better than the current BG material (the only current reference being the bloated, over produced stinker ‘Night at the Opera’). How could the band continue on with a drummer who believed his own side project was a better proposition than his main band? They couldn’t.

The boys from Persuader must be pinching themselves at the moment. Not only do the get to pursue a style their own band tried hard to emulate, but they get to work with Blind Guardian’s former drummer, playing material that he believes is a much more authentic power metal style than what he was doing in BG. And there is simply no denying the sound of ‘Dreamland Manor’ – it is pure early period ‘Blind Guardian’ – right down to the speed driven delivery, long bombastic song writing structures, dynamic riffing, searing melodic leads, massive choir like choruses and Jens Carlsson’s distinctive ‘Hansi-like’ vocalising. Superbly produced by Piet Sielck, there is a phenomenal freshness and explosive energy about ‘Dreamland..’, that will have you recalling BG staples such as ‘Somewhere Far Beyond” or ‘Valley From The Twilight World. Seriously, the resemblance is uncanny and will have you doing the proverbial double take at times. The clincher of the whole album though is the song writing – the quality rarely dips, it is consistently strong with many highlights. You’ll find your own favourites, but you can’t go past the awesome opener ‘Evil Eyes, When Hell Awakes, Ghost Story, and the storming closer ‘Born Again by the Night’.

There is possibly a school of thought that ‘Savage Circus’ is perhaps too close to the bone. Do we really need another Blind Guardian clone, particularly when Persuader was doing their own impersonations as well? My response to that would be that ‘Savage Circus’ represents a style that BG has moved on from. And with the disappointing ‘Night at the Opera’ still leaving a bad taste in my mouth, I’d much prefer what Savage Circus is doing at the moment. There’s just a brilliant vibrancy and immediacy that ‘Dreamland..’ has been able to capture. There will be plenty who concur with me when I say that BG should still write songs like those that ‘Savage Circus’ has come up with. It will be interesting to see just what ‘Blind Guardian’ offers up on their next album. If it has even half the dynamic urgency and catchiness of this, then it’ll be a keeper. Until then, it’s Savage Circus = 1, Blind Guardian = 0.

note: 8.8/10

Tracklist

Evil Eyes
Between The Devil And The Seas
Waltz of The Demon
Tomorrowland
It – The Gathering
Beyond Reality
When Hell Awakes
Ghost Story
Born Again By The Night

Line-up

Jens Carlsson: vocals
Emil Norberg: guitars
Piet Sielck: bass
Thomen Stauch: drums