Review: Nights at the Circus

By Stephen Morris
Website contributor

Nights at the Circus gig regularly around Gloucester, Stroud & the Forest

Honestly! You wait for a bit of brooding misery and then two lots of it come along at once.

First Atakarma with their symphonic misery fest - now to the other extreme with a stripped down, lo-fi interpretation of general glumness in the form of Nights at the Circus.

Nights at the Circus is not, as you might imagine, the discarded name of a Queen album.

Instead, it's the moniker chosen for a three piece outfit (two parts from Gloucester, one part from Llanberis).

This is sumptuous, well crafted, music designed to leave a shiver down your spine. Stephen Morris

The band takes a bare bones approach to music with just a bass and drums to accompany the vocals - with the occasional addition of a melodica for good measure.

The result is an intimate collection of songs bridging the gap between folk and rock.

The songs are dark - intensely dark. There are songs about stalking (Stalker Love), the misery of homelessness (Song for Everyone) and the nature of addiction (Mr Nice).

Throw in the fear of abduction (Dark Sin Veil), a tale of lecherous old men (Masquerade) and a brooding description of encroaching winter with Brothers Grimm overtones (The Low Winds) and you have the perfect recipe for a bleak listening experience. Bleak but strangely beautiful.

Dave and Mark are from Gloucester whereas Jen hails from Llanberis

Each song is an intense hit of pure poetry. Take this verse from Mr Nice:

"She will apply a whisky kiss - a scarlet hit. She will destroy your ice cream turrets cherry sweet. She will apply herself like paint to taint your skin. She will destroy the gentle hand that touches it."

Or just the simple couplet of "I am the one who tried to throw my life away/Imagine feeling that alone" from Song for Everyone.

There is something heartbreakingly beautiful about these paeans to lost innocence and bad experience.

It is mournful and sad, but far from self indulgent.

For a list of people with whom to compare Nights at the Circus, it may be better to turn to the poets Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and RS Thomas than to any of the usual guitar toting suspects.

Lungs and bass

The majority of the vocals come courtesy of Jen Keen whose voice covers a broad range between a pure, Bjork-ish fragility and a bitter snarl more commonly found coming from Kim Deal of The Breeders (I know I said it would be better to compare this band with poets, but unfortunately, I don't know what Gabrielle Rossetti or Thomas Hardy's voices sounded like!).

Further vocal duties are performed by drummer, Mark Young whose chilling delivery in The Low Winds will remind many of Nick Cave.

And then there's the bass. Dave Hill's wordless contribution to proceedings is perhaps the defining aspect of Nights at the Circus' music.

NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS Jen Keen, Vocals & Melodica Dave Hill, Bass Mark Young, Drums & Vocals

The bass line is gritty and bare, chugging along through a thick soup of malevolence at one moment, then wandering around effortlessly in the ether the next.

The majority of Mr Nice is made of just two notes from the bass line followed by a quick funky solo, a held de-tuned note and then back to the two tone repetition.

It's simple - the simplest form of accompaniment - but it works brilliantly.

This is sumptuous, well crafted, music designed to leave a shiver down your spine.

Despite the very real issues of homelessness, lechery and the decline into addiction that the songs raise, there is something otherworldly about Nights at the Circus' music that is particularly chilling.

Sweet dreams!