DEAD LETTER CIRCUS

Dead Letter Circus is a Brisbane band and so this immediately peaks my interest. I love hearing local acts, and these guys are certainly one of the better ones going around.

For this album, "This Is The Warning", I particularly love the opening track, "Here We Divide." It has an immediately engaging resonance: a throbbing, delay driven tempo that pulls the listener in. It's really a great way to start the album.

"One Step" is another of the big singles and features some great vocal hooks by Kim Benzie. Once again the trilling, delay-laden guitar that is a feature of Dead Letter Circus' sound is prominent.

For the most part the songs on this album are a radio friendly 3 or 4 minutes long with standard compositions in 4/4 time signature. I'm not sure of the prog credentials for this album, I would more classify it as hard or alternative rock. But it's still very competently done and the songs are better than average in this genre.

"The Drum" is a track with a more unusual format, with lots of atmospherics and a killer climax as percussion and guitar come together.

It's a good rock album without a doubt, but probably not essential.

A hardly typical representation of neo-prog, this band actually sounds more like Chevelle after a diet of Porcupine Tree, Muse and U2. An accessible yet interesting mix of rock band inspirations with an aspiration to bang out some serious anthemic songs.

I actually found the opening track to be the band at their best with its majestic delivery and powerful guitar sound and overall production values. Here We Divide has some progressive leanings I suppose, but certainly no more than, say, Tool or bands similar to that in a sense, although I enjoy this song more than many songs by a lot of these big name alternative rock (with some progginess) groups. There are some variances to the rest of the songs, but not by all that much, which causes me to lose interest towards the last couple of tracks. The Drum stands out as a song as it follows a more post-rock crescendo template than the verse chorus format of much of the rest of this album, and yes, the drummer goes into a frenzy at the tune's climax. I assume that's why they entitled the song as "The Drum", but I could be wrong. Other tracks flirt with nu-metal commercial appeal to some extent, with The Space on the Wall sounding akin to something Breaking Benjamin would proudly release. Cage has a bit of NIN meets Muse in it's design. It's pretty obvious the target audience for this band isn't your typical neo-prog music fan, nor was that their intention. This is modern arena style rock, but played well and with a talented high registered vocalist.

I can enjoy this sort of thing once in a while. The music has punch and a vast wall of sound vibe, and the lyrics don't grate so much even if they seem to be about nothing except "falling down" and "rising up". This effort is definitely geared more towards fans of alternative rock stylings than prog rock fans, so that should be the decision whether to check the band out or not.

After the immediate impact of "Dead Letter Circus" EP in 2007, "This Is The Warning" was the most awaited debut album from the Australian alternative/progressive rock scene, which also includes bands like The Butterfly Effect and Karnivool. Apart from these bands, the sound of DLC in some points reminds of Dredg. The unique sound of the band is obvious upon first listen. The combination of skilfulness and great songwriting is evident once more and maybe this will be the big break for the band from Brisbane. The high-pitched voice of Kim Benzie, the melodic guitar of Rob Maric, the innovative bass playing of Stewart Hill and probably the band's trademark, the drumming of Luke Williams (also of Melodyssey) are in top form here. The characteristic of this album is that though it sounds like mainstream alternative rock (in a good sense), all songs include great orchestration and all have a unique progressive aspect. Also worth-mentioning is the magnificent album artwork by Tasmanian graphic artist Cameron Gray. If I have to state a weak point in this album, this would probably be the slightly weaker sound in the previously released singles "The Space On The Wall", "Reaction" and "Next In Line", but this really minor. I think that any person who really likes progressive music will definitelly enjoy this album. Favourite songs: "Here We Divide", "Big", "Space On The Wall".