Circle of Animals

The Metal Examiner: Circle of Animals’ Destroy the Light

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Circle of Animals: Destroy the LightCircle of Animals: Destroy the Light (Relapse, 10/12/2010)

Click here to download Circle of Animals’ “Poison the Lamb”
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Producer/multi-instrumentalist Sanford Parker (Minsk, Buried at Sea) and saxophonist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) have long and assorted ties in and around Chicago, where the two reside and contribute to the city’s vibrant underground.

Parker, in addition to his main gig in Minsk, has produced the likes of Pelican, Rwake, Unearthly Trance, Jai Alai Savant, Lair of the Minotaur, and Nachtmystium, and Lamont, outside of Yakuza, recently finished recording a solo album and regularly plays with other experimental metal and noise outfits (Decayist, Sick Gazelle) as well as improvised-jazz players (Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, Dave Rempis).

Each man’s résumé is a mile long, and now the two have come together to pay tribute to Chicago’s late-’80s and early-’90s Wax Trax! industrial scene with their new project, Circle of Animals. A diverse and widely recognizable cast of drummers rounds out the lineup on this release, with names like Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste), John Herndon (Tortoise), John Merryman (Cephalic Carnage), and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) lending their talents.

This Month In Metal: Ion Dissonance, Cephalic Carnage, ex-Animosity

Listening to all of this insane music is making my summer even hotter, but it’s good practice, because eventually, Hell awaits!

Ion Dissonance: Cursed (Century Media)

Did you love Calculating Infinity? ADD got you down? Not nearly enough riffs on the last three albums you bought, combined? This Month In Metal is pleased to introduce you to Ion Dissonance‘s Cursed. With a heavy hardcore slant in both attitude and execution, Cursed whips right along, tosses you every which way, and then runs you down when you try to get your bearings. Trim off the last track’s eight minutes of weird alien noises and insane-dude rambling and you have a 40-minute scorcher that’s suitable for slam-dancing of all varieties.

Ion Dissonance: “You People Are Messed Up”
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