Thursday 11 February 2021

Sins Of Magnus - The Circus (Album Review)


Release Date: 16th February 2021. Record Label: Self Released. Formats: CD/DD

The Circus - Tracklisting

The Claw
Unfettered Journey
The Circus
False Flag
Carved In Stone
Ymir
We Gonna
Flux Capacitor
N.F.C.
Say Goodbye To Your Generation
Clockpunchers
Hammer

Members

Eric Early
Rich Sutcliffe
Sean Young

Review

Sins Of Magnus new album The Circus is their 3rd album and my first venture into their heavy and hard-rockng world. The band have wild abandonment for genre rules and conventions by playing a multitude of different styles of music of how they see fit. The band plays a mixture of Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk Rock, Stoner Metal and some top-heavy Thrash Metal.

Imagine Valient Thorr jamming with Motorhead and that’s what you get with Sins Of Magnus. Their new album is a wild and exciting ride that never takes itself too seriously but still treats the listener to some seriously heavy grooves. The album has a “VIKING” outlook on life with Doom/Stoner Metal influences being the main style of music holding everything together.

Opening song - The Claw - is a two and half minute blast of aggressive Doom/Stoner Metal beats with Viking inspired soundbytes that sets up the overall style of music for the album. The Punk Rock/Thrash environment is another cool touch.

Second song - Unfettered Journey - is a weird song with the band changing musical tempo starting with in-your-face Punk Rock theatrics before playing a cool Post-Doom/Psych Rock riff before returning to the “neanderthal” style of Heavy Rock/Metal with a commanding Stoner Metal presence to them. The vocals are raucous but catchy as hell. Though the “Mastodon-esque” psychedelic parts offer something hypnotic with the band showing a keen talent for playing melodic grooves.

Third song - The Circus - opens with a thumping bass line with rough sounding vocals but keeps in with the overall “Punk Rock” aesthetic the band keeps for the whole album. The song does take time to find it’s actual groove but there are some fantastic riffs on this song. It maybe too raw at times but it’s still a load of fun with the band never taking themselves too seriously.

Now I could do a song-by-song review of the album but I would be here all day and the band have written 12 tracks spanned out over 45 minutes.

The majority of the songs run between 2 mins to 5 mins in length. Sins Of Magnus excel throughout this album with their wild creative lyrics and great music they have written for this record.

Standout tracks include: False Flag, Carved In Stone, Ymir, Flux Capacitor, Say Goodbye To Your Generation and Clockpunchers.

These tracks are the ones that got my heart pumping, head-banging and fists clenched in the air at the same time with Sins Of Magnus bringing their “A” Game to the party with their style of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. The band show their love for MOTORHEAD on this record and mostly on these tracks but given a VIKING themed makeover. Well if VIKING'S ever played Punk Rock. You'll understand more when you hear the whole album.

The album can be quite progressive as well with Sins Of Magnus fusing Punk Rock atmospherics with Mastodon style Progressive Sludge Guitars.

The Circus is a wild-sounding record and Sins Of Magnus make no apologies for a bombastic take on all things Doom/Stoner Metal. This is a wonderfully exciting and rebellious album that the world of Doom/Stoner Metal needs right now.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Sins Of Magnus for the promo. The Circus will be available to buy on CD/DD from February 16th 2021.

Links


Instagram | BandCamp