Customer Reviews

Circus Animals

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I know of only a few people who have even heard of Cold Chisel, but I'd venture to guess that virtually any American fan of classic rock ranging from Steely Dan to Bob Seger to Blue Oyster Cult to Bruce Springsteen would love this Australian band if they ever got a chance to hear them. "Circus Animals", their 4th studio album, shows them moving in a slightly pop direction with great songs like "Forever Now", and "No Good For You". Of course they still rock like crazy on "Bow River", "Wild Colonial Boy", etc. Cold Chisel have got the musical chops, the great guitar leads from Ian Moss, the great singing of Jimmy Barnes, and most important, the great songs of Don Walker, who writes the kind of lyrics that would fit right in on an album by Dylan or Jackson Browne and are so seldom heard on music that rocks this hard. The complete package!

You want Oz-Rock at it's finest? Just listen to Bow River. Hear Ian Moss' amazing voice (and he ain't even the lead singer). Hear the band kick in for the second verse. Hear it lift when Jim Barnes joins in for the chorus. Experience the intensity in Mossy's crunching guitar solo and then, when you think it can't scale any new peaks, feel your hairs stand on end when Barnes comes in for the final screaming verse. It all finishes with Moss bringing it back down to earth. I'm always breathless by the end of this song. As for the rest of the disc, all I'll say is there's not a dud song on there, esp Wild Colonial Boy, No Good For You, Hound Dog (love the bridge), and the classic, classic pop of Forever Now. Stunning music.

This album is a gem...a must for any rock collection. in the early 80s when the American "hair bands" (Journey/REO etc) had degenerated into shlock like "Lovin', touchin' squeezin'" and "High Infidelity" these Aussies were rockin'. This album is a fine mix of balls-out rockers to ballads and every song is great. This is Cold Chisel at their best. The original version of "Bow River" found on this album, which appears in many forms on all live Chisel albums, is the best of all....possibly one of the coolest, catchiest rock songs ever written....a virtual rollercoaster of fantastic vocals and crunchy guitar hooks...great stuff. The bonus tracks are neat but the original more than stands up by itself. Cold Chisel was an honest, straight-forward band with no need for hype or pretense. It is too bad they had such a short life together....more records like this would be very welcome indeed. I could write a lot about this relatively unknown album (at least unknown in the US) but suffice it to say it always satisfies. Buy it and enjoy it, I know you will.

This is not as intantly gratifying as "East", as it does not, in my opinion contain as much radio friendly, poppy stuff as that album.

This is a much better album because of the songs that did not make radio play. All the Don Walker stuff such as "Wild Colonial Boy", "Houndog", "Taipan" and "Letter To Alan" make this a great album. Songs that are personal and direct, they are gems that shine in a mine of great material.

The pop is not left completely behind with "Forever Now" and the classic "When The War Is Over" as well as the biting Barnes classic "You Got Nothing I Want" about Elektra records.

Recorded in 1981, but still sounding as fresh now as it ever did it is an Australian classic and these blokes should have been huge overseas if given the right promotion. Unfortunately, they weren't big and didn't get the right promotion from Elektra.
Such a pity as they were truly great

BY FAR THE BEST ALBUM BY THE BAND.AFTER THEIR HUGE ALBUM EAST WHICH LAUNCHED THEM INTERNATIONALLY AND PROVED TO THE WORLD HOW GOOD THEY WERE AT PRODUCING PUMPING ROCK AND ROLL.CIRCUS ANIMALS WAS A MORE REFINED ALBUM AND CONTAINED SONGS WHICH WERE NOT ONLY CLOSE TO THE BANDS HEART BUT ALSO SONGS WHICH REMAIN POPULAR ALMOST 20 YEARS AFTER ITS RELEASE. A MUST HAVE FOR ANYONES MUSIC COLLECTION........

Scary to think this has been a favorite of mine for what will soon be 30 (gulp!) years. Happily, time has not dimmed this record's excellence. A real rarity in any era, CIRCUS ANIMALS is an arena-rock album (big guitars, big drums, wailing solos, lungbusting vox) that's also a triumph of personal, intimate songwriting. The songs will first of all galvanize you, because this is first-class heavy rock that won't let you sit still; but what I love best about it are the lyrics, which are chock-full of "Australian stuff" - names and places and references specific to everyday life in and along the Pacific Rim, and a few even more personalized than that ("Letter to Alan", for one). These types of small details lend CIRCUS ANIMALS an authenticity and integrity you rarely find (and hardly ever bother to look for) in a high-powered rock'n'roll album.

From the perspective of this Yank (who's never been Down Under, alas), the many tantalizingly exotic-sounding locations cited - Woolloomooloo, Nambucca, Hornsby Station, Wayside Chapel & Centennial Park, etc, etc - affix the music solidly to a specific time and place that, rather than alienate an outsider like me, leaves a door into a different world beguilingly ajar. But not too different, mind - no, in an odd and wonderful way, the specific references help make these songs shared experiences with the listener....because the emotions informing every song are universal ones. (You don't need to know where "Bow River" is exactly to know precisely what Ian Moss is singing about.)

I bought this after having sampled the Chisel's previous (at least in the States) release, EAST, which I found quite promising if slightly unsatisfying; CIRCUS ANIMALS is the fulfillment of that early promise. Special praise needs to be paid to keyboardist/songwriter Don Walker, who displays stunning mastery of songcraft in his compositions here, although there are no slouches on this setlist. Just buy this cd.