STONE CIRCLE - MYTH (Cd Review)

01.The Puzzle

02.Tempest

03.The Greatest Lie

04.A Missing Star

05.The Sky Has Spoken

06.Closed Eyes

07.Grief

Joe Ashwin (Vocals/Guitar)

James Pearce (Bass)

Tom Skelton (Guitar)

Sam Hill (Drums)

Nick Young (Keyboards)

Brighton based band who began life In 2004 as “Obsidian”. This consisted of current members Joe Ashwin, James Pearce and Sam Hill, with Tom Skelton joining in 2005 to complete the current lineup. Stone Circle (then Obsidian) experimented with many styles within rock and metal, taking influences from bands such as Opeth, Amorphis and Katatonia. They began creating a dark progressive sound of their own encompassing many moods from somber, beautiful acoustic passages to aggressive riff driven sections bringing a death metal edge to the music. Something they have continued to progress at to this day.

'The Puzzle' is a stunning opening song full of intelligent black metal influences (especially vocally) superb drumming and a highly evocative blend of instrumentation.

The next track 'Tempest' is a more melodic affair with sweeping guitars and catchy riffs, even when the songs gets heavier the mood remains easy on the ear.

There is a nice Led Zeppelin/Pink Floyd feel to 'The Greatest Lie' musically but with a great death/black metal vocal and seriously cool lyrics: "The greatest poison the world has ever seen, promoting sickness of mind", just love this song!

The acoustic passage in 'A missing star' just has to be heard at full volume, it is just perfection and sits perfectley against the full on metal onslaught which surrounds it.

'The sky has spoken' is a screaming metal headbanging epic, their trademark melodic breakdowns allowing you time to catch your breath and the stunning guitar solo towards the end demands your upmost attention.

Dave Gilmour styled guitarwork punctuates the albums melodic masterpiece 'Closed eyes', a truley beautiful song.

We end with 'Grief', a song that seems to reflect all their styles from jazzy passages to the fringes of extreme metal and towards the end with an avant-garde synth distortion.

This is nothing short of brilliant, the band have matured to a very high professional standard and created real music that challenges the listener and draws them into an exceptional aural journey.

STU

Rating 10/10

For fans of : Opeth, Amorphis, Celtic Frost, Satyricon

JANUARY GIG FLYERS

ACHILLA, SOLSIKK, STONE CIRCLE, ARXIS Live At The Gaff 12.06.09 (Gig Review)

ACHILLA
SOLSIKK
STONE CIRCLE
ARXIS

The Gaff, Holloway Road 12.06.09

You cant put a metal gig on in London during Download festival weekend they said, how wrong they were......

ARXIS
Hailing from south london, these guys understand their heavy metal and perform to a very high standard.
Entertaining and very talented there is a great potential here for another fan winning band.Strong songs with great hooks n riffs get the right reaction but the highlight from tonights set was an inspired cover of Iron Maiden's "Wicker Man", a smart move when nobody knows your own material.

STONE CIRCLE
Vocalist and lead guitarist Joe Ashwin is clearly the result of a genetic experiment to splice together Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour and Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt !
They perform long and highly technical songs which are individual masterpieces of excellence.
I do not use such words lightly this band has an amazing and mature sound blending melody and progressive death metal to the standard of Opeth, my only question here is "why are they not signed?".

SOLSIKK
Powering into a set of Arch Enemy vocal attack meets Fear Factory beats, fuelled by solid bass, expert drumming and break-neck guitarwork, the band more than lived up to expectations.
Then we come to song number four, a ballad.This really made you stop in your tracks initial reaction was that of slight confusion but then as the song progressed the audience were totally with it then came one of the most stunning guitar solos i have heard in a long time, full of soul and note perfect.

They followed this with a less than serious cover of Willie Dixons blues classic 'I Just Want To Make Love To You' complete with extreme metal triggering from drummer Matt.

The rest of the set was pulled back to full on metal to end a perfect performance.

ACHILLA
Having seen them a couple of months back at the Underworld suffering from bad sound i was looking forward to hearing them properly, i was a little surprised to them as a quartet as opposed to a five piece and with a different bassist.

Tonights performance was like watching a different band, they seemed more relaxed yet produced a very intense set, their sound was excellent and Dan's guitarwork was inspired.
They played all the soon to be "Classics" like 'Arashi', 'Inside A Lie' and the awesome 'Devils Eyes', tonight they also threw in an unusual cover of 'Pull Me Under' by Dream Theatre, weird to hear it with female vocals but they pulled it off with real class.

Achilla have the potential to be a great band able to rival Nightwish both musically and with Martamaria vocally.Personally i feel that a keyboard player would add greatly to their sound and bring it to another level.
All in all a stunning performance from a band that deserves your attention.

STU

ARXIS

STONE CIRCLE

SOLSIKK

ACHILLA