Back to Norway, for prog metal band Circus Maximus, who debuted with The 1st Chapter in 2005. I picked up this one right away too, although I can't remember how I heard about them. It was probably Amazon and their deadly accurate recommendation system. The album is a polished collection of melodic and fairly technical songs; well thought out, played and produced. The style is pretty much right down the middle of the norm for the genre, featuring ample keyboards, meter changes and capable soaring clean vocals. They've since released two more albums, and I've only heard the middle one. It's similar to the first; maybe slightly lighter and catchier. I prefer the debut for its freshness, but they're both solid releases and well worth checking out.
The opening track, "Sin", is probably the heaviest (but not the prog-iest) on the debut album. If you've been following me for the past 24 bands, you may have realized that I prefer heavy, so I'm including the song here. It's a pretty busy song, with loads of meter and feel changes (again right up my alley). The sound is pretty thick, thanks to the heavily orchestrated keyboards and lots of overlain sound effects and guitar and vocal texturing. Circus Maximus manages the line between tricky and listenable pretty well in general, and particularly on this song. Hope you like it as much as I do.
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