Label: Frontiers 2021
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom
Welcome To The Absurd Circus? To be perfectly honest. I haven't been following the development of Labyrinth and I can't really say that I recall much from their 2017 comeback album, "Architecture Of A God". I'm not even sure if I heard it? Anyhow. They were simply one of many bands and let's face it, there's way too many acts out there, you simply can't keep track of them all. Lo and behold. It's album number nine (9) by the Italian Prog Metal act and the founding members of Andrea Cantarelli and Olaf Thorsen (guitars) and Roberto Tiranti (vocals) are now joined by Oleg Smirnoff (Vision Divine, Eldritch) on keyboards, Nik Mazzucconi (Hardline, Edge Of Forever) on bass and newest member Mattia Peruzzi (drums).
Musically the band continues to move away from the Vanden Plas and Dream Theater Prog that used to be its mainstay and influences. It's hard to fault the first couple of tracks as they feature a nice slice of Italian prog-pizza spice, wicked rhythms, and ever changing dynamics. Quickly flowing into a complex groove it sets the blueprint for the album and it's good weighty prog metal. The vivid arrangements delivers the best possible wrapping for the band's musical gifts and I don't recall Tiranti ever sounding/singing this great in the past?
Hardly everything that glitter is gold though and you can still find a couple of false/dodgy gems and nuggets towards the end of the album. I do however enjoy their version of "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" as originally performed by Ultravox. You can't beat perfection though and the original version still rule the crying game of this poor dented metal heart. The problems only start when The Absurd Circus are sending out their clowns to sweep the floor after the elephants. It's a couple of bad and sad moments before they return home to the impressive ballad of "A Reason To Survive". Final Verdict: Solid as Prog-Metal goes in 2021. It's not earth-shattering or ground-breaking stuff. It's... darn solid! Labyrinth at Facebook
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