Circaic - False Prophetic Roads

There is something that needs to be said about Melodic Death Metal (MDM). Not only it is pejorative as it assumes that regular Old School Death Metal has no melody, it is commonly used in interval with an even more ominous term, the “Gothenburg sound”. While it’s fair to say that a certain scene may have a certain sound pre-internet age, the term no longer make sense when scenes overlap and the spread of information allows other bands to imitate that specific riff. The question then becomes what constitutes a MDM riff?


Early In Flames has always been categorized as Iron Maiden influenced leads layered on Death Metal riffs. Some bands however call themselves MDM but in turn sound like a Power Metal/Trad band, firing their classically trained vocalist with harsh vocals from a growler instead. That is where the term Melodeath comes in, which can be used in an insulting context for some.


To me, the MDM sound is just Death Metal with the inclusion of harmonics, the usage of minor chords and a slightly more conventional form of song structure to make it sound “poppier” (for the lack of a better term) or easily digestible in comparison.


Now, it is unfair to categorize all Melodic Death Metal bands as so, as the term has evolved throughout the times to include clean singing or even stop-start riffs. Circaic is a band that embodies that evolution of Melodic Death Metal. The band combines catchy clean choruses, extremely melodic guitar leads, layered on Death Metal riffs that do not sound stereotypically “Gothenburg” with a keyboard to finish off that modern Melodic Death sound.

Holy shit, is the 2nd guy from the left Nicholas Cage?

Circaic starts off strong with double bass drums pummelling through and layered with deep growls with an almost At The Gates like riff but then turns into something that could be off from an old Kataklysm album. Despite the ATG reference, the drums don’t go into the Punk or Thrash sounding snare dominated drum work that Slaughter of The Soul had.


They are mainly kept at excellent machine gun drumming when needed and drum rolls that glues different patterns. The lead guitars go up and down as if taking a separate narrative from the vocals, like two different streams next to each other. They flow into the same direction but not in the exact same creek. When the clean vocals come in, the easiest comparison that could be made would be Scar Symmetry. Though the clean vocals are not as deep as Alvestrom’s cleans easily could pull you in to sing along. With an almost nasal like singing the clean vocals won’t be there for long and for those who fear that it might go into Power Metal cheese category, do not fret.


The band manages to keep it on a leash. It however does remind me of the cleaner vocals of some of Soilwork’s mid-era work. Despite the Soilwork or Scar Symmetry analogies, don’t expect constant stop-start riffs and the melodic Groove Metal of the band. There are some but in no way they are dominant or are in control of the band’s sound. In its core the band actively keeps riff after riff within the Death Metal realm and to not keep things stale harmonics kick in and amazing lead work take over.


In fact, the better lead works of Scar Symmetry have their money at stake here. As one could assume from the Scar Symmetry reference, those who are searching for dark sounding MDM should stay away from this. The band has some guitar solos that are uplifting sounding at times. While there are blistering evil sounding parts with machine gun drumming madness, it is only brief and that “positive” sounding notes keep popping back.


The energy of the band does not seem to be halted by the clean vocals as the tempo is kept at a fast pace and in fact throughout the whole EP, the band is able to keep up the speed without being a let-down in anyway.

Somebody lost a bet?

The band has also extensively used keyboards in the background to create an accompanying pseudo orchestra but has never been too dominant. There are some instances where keys do take the centre stage but it is never too long. Just a few seconds here and there, in no way taking the limelight. This could be seen from a positive angle because the band has been at high speed and at the highest gear most of the time and would be distracting to see an overpowering piano solo.


While mainly the keyboards are used as a piece to keep the environment, some parts of the title track, especially in the beginning, the keys do come in a piano like manner. However it sounded as if it was a novelty instead. There is one part that the band allowed the keyboard to take the narrative and it was done in a tasteful electronica outro.

Song writing wise, a listener could easily see that they aim to be catchy and easy listening for those in the genre. To be fair, the genre itself isn’t easy listening to outsiders. Easily spliced into a verse/chorus format rather than going against the grain. Though not specifically in that order, one could easily pick out what is meant to be the chorus or what is meant to be a hook by the band. This is most prevalent in tracks like The Separation Phase.


However, having so isn’t such a bad thing in Metal. Who says that Metal needs to be breaking down barriers all the time? Sometimes art is done within the confine what is already established and that is what the band did. What is noticeable is that the band seems to be influenced to be a latter camp of MDM and move back in the annals of MDM.


They then take parts of various eras of MDM and filtered it into this. The result is an album that could be described as a blistering, lead-centric album that is also clean vocal inclusive that harks the era where MDM bands were starting to be influenced by Nu-Metal bands. While that may irk many, the best assurance that could be given would be that the better elements are cannibalized. For example the electronic keys and catchy choruses that Soilwork had.

There is some stuff I would like to nit-pick though. Firstly, the album starts off with the typical TV static like intro, layered with a compressed sample somewhere in the background. This seems to be a trend in many MDM bands. It sounds as if they are just trying to copy At the Gate’s Slaughter of The Souls over and over again.


Bands need to realize that is probably overdone. There are many other ways to pull off the intro and unless you are an industrial band or it is integral to the sound of the band, then I don’t see any reason to do so. Then again, there is more like a nit-pick than an actual form of criticism.

To wrap it all up, the band can be said to be the exact example how a genre can look back at its past evolutions and then pick the best parts to produce this. Rather than creating new sound, the band uses what works for them and it did. This in no way is for those looking for the darker side of Metal.


If this band were more popular band, it would be easier to say that this band belongs in the beginner camp for listeners. In no way that comment was meant to insinuate that the music is simplistic, it definitely takes a lot of skill to pull off the leads here. But that comment is to show how easily digestible the music is for beginners.


Probably that is what encapsulates the band. While on the surface, the band may sound simple in its verse chorus format, deep beneath the skin, there is always something complex going on. I hope to hear this with clearer production in the future.


PS/ I’m not so sure why did the band release this as an EP when there are many albums at this length. I hope that means the songs will be re-recorded with better production.

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.