Customer Reviews

As the Roots Undo

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Guess what guys?

I'm pretty sure this is a concept album, though I may have just listened to it a bit too much and over-analyzed everything. But it makes sense! Take my metaphorical hand: I'm going to walk you through this.

Intro: A song about the birth of a thought in the head of a man.
Same Shade as Concrete: Our man begins to question Religion and the validity of god. in this process, a new idea is sparked...
Crowquill: Man (let's just call him Jerry for the lovely sake of reference) decides that he will kill himself. He will end his own life to find out if god exists. He writes a note (Or a crow-quilled threnody) and plans for his departure.
In The Nervous Light: Jerry goes down a path of recollection before his death. He silences himself, closes his eyes, takes a breath and jumps out the window. But our friend Jerry didn't think the whole thing through. He regrets his decision on the way down, but it's too late.
Interview at the Ruins: Jerry is no more. The living public is temporarily alive with excitement over the recent suicide, since it gives them something to talk about. Jerry is buried.
Non-Objective Portrait of Karma: The entire opening is to signify ascension. Jerry was successful, and he is indeed rising to heaven above. But when he arrives, he doesn't like what he sees. You see, heaven isn't all its cracked up to be. It is full of terrible things, angels who feast upon your energy because God is corrupt, and that's how he runs the place.
Kill the Switch: Longest song on the album for a reason. This song is about the murder of God. Jerry forms a mutiny. Everyone in heaven takes down the corruption that is God to try and acheive a true utopia, a perfect society. But they forget that perfection cannot really exist, since the definition of something so abstract varies. Heaven had always needed a leader. So they appointed our friend Jerry to take the place of God.
A Crater to Cough In: Notice the similarities between this track and the first? Of course you do. Thats because its a form of rebirth. Jerry is God. But over time, he becomes just as corrupt with power. It becomes cyclical. The angels stage a mutiny against Jerry at the end, and he is, in turn, killed again in the search for perfection. As jerry is dying for the second time, he is again full of regret. But there is nothing he can do but accept what he had become and fade into memory.

DAMN that was a lot of typing. Okay. So thats my theory. Maybe i'm crazy, maybe not. But lyrically, this album exceeds anything. And Musically....it's so difficult to capture the beauty and violence this album portrays. There are only three people in this band. TALENT. This is definately the greatest, most powerful album i have ever heard. EVER. it is impossible to describe, but you will NEVER forget it. Buy it. Do it. Now.

Grind and screamo have never been creative genres, merely impressive for their offensive emotional discharge and brutal technicalities and tone. Yet Circle Takes the Square have interwoven both genres with the delicate fingers of poets and visionaries. The cloud scraping level of musical mastery is only eclipsed by the foresight of the form and the classic range of the lyrical content. Dual screamers punctuate their nearly Shakespearean word play with vocals that shred, cut and call from separate sonic corners leaving anyone caught in between gorgeously decimated.

This is not the last gasping breath from the decaying lungs of a slowly dying scene- this is a choral battle cry straight from the lungs of a beast that is only begining to wake.

Circle Takes the Square stands alone.

In a word: cathartic.

I saw these guys play a transcendent set a couple of weeks ago, when they click on all cylinders they are the best live band out there. Something about their music just sucks you in. 'Cos you can't necessarily understand what's going on all the time, but there's enough there to keep you interested. Their actual sound is hard to pinpoint, there are blast beats and minor key guitar riffs that don't make sense. "In the Nervous Light of Sunday" is the masterpiece. "Kill the Switch" is another highlight.

The he/she singers squawk out really elaborate poetry, weaving in and out of each others vocal lines and occasionally striking a PERFECT balance (wade in the water child...). I wonder if the songs are written around the words. That would explain alot. The guys lyrics are arresting, every now and then it gets pretentious with all the cliche' metaphors about boughs and ruins. Ambitious.

Yeah, screamo is lame sometimes, but CTTS are more than screamo. Mention must be made of the elaborate, beautiful packaging. The guitarist/singer designed it, so... steal this from a chain store. If you don't get into at first give it another shot, what you put in is what you get out.

Most people into music know that emo came about as a rebellion to the macho-ness associated with hardcore punk music and that screamo is a sub-genre of emo that tends to be more extreme than mainstream emo.

While the movement has to be respected for introducing emotional expression into punk music, it doesn't really come across as sincere and the lyrics tend to be far too cheesey and cliched.

Circle Takes the Square however, make this style into nothing less than an artform. Spewing poetic symbolism and philosophical ponderings with distressed screams and focused whispers, constantly progressing within each song till it no longer resembles the initial form at all, reintroducing melodies and riffs from previous tracks and referring to old metaphors in new lights as the album prgresses; this is more of a musical novel than a collection of songs.

To get the full joy and experience out of it, you must listen to it the whole way through, in order and uninterrupted. The songs are meant to symbolise a journey towards enlightenment as an individual confronts different aspects of life. Each song is excellent when played in context, but the one downside is that many of them can seem quite empty and meaningless if you listen to them in isolation.

Apart from that glitch, anyone who is interested in artistic, creative music without any pretentiousness should get this album

I see this album as the most influencing album of my life. This album leaves me speachless at every spin. Wow. This group shows the most correct and best ways to use dynamics. From the chants of the beginning track and immediate beginning of the second Same Shade as Concrete, you know this album is different than anything else you own. The music is brilliant. There are points of complete solace that are either interupted or gradually built upon in such a wonderfully stylistic manner. The music is very complex. The lyrics: Astounding. The lyrical choice of this band reminds me much of the detail used by Herman Mellville, yet it is an a very beautifully written poetic form. In case you don't know who Melville is, he wrote such stories as Moby Dick, and Bartleby, The Scriviner. Kathy has a voice that to me is soothing. Do not misunderstand this. Her voice is very abrasive and raw. She does not sing, nor does she growl. It is very difficult to explain how she displays her vocal talent. Kathy is backed vocally by Drew and Jay (The other two members of the band during the albums release). They provide a very nice balance. So there you have it. The Thunder, Lightning, and Rain. Altogether these elements make the storm. So many meanings can be taken from this album. Look into the lyrics and music and apply all of what they say to your life. I find it more than inspiring. This album is wonderful. I highly recommend and condone it.

Chew on this for a while.
"Perfectly Imperfect, Like the Storm" *Circle Takes The Square

This CD, "As The Roots Undo" is my favorite CD of all time. Circle Takes The Square managed to take a genre of music, that was predominantly bands like Pg.99 and City Of Caterpillar, where it was very noisey, and unorganized, and put alot of structure, and melody into it. I think this may be the only truly melodic screamo out there.

The lyrics are so passionate and beautiful, you'll be repeating them to yourself for days afterwards. Not to mention the duel-singers, with one belting out shrills, and the other woman yelling, it creates a very strange, but noticible balance.

Along with softer songs like "Interview At The Ruins" and "A Nonobjective Portrait Of Karma", with such beautiful melodies, they also have much harder songs, like "Crowquill" and "Kill The Switch", that have beautifuly crafted lyrics, and it is so well put together, while at the same time managing to sound chaotic.

This is the best CD I have ever bought. Do yourselves a favor and pick it up. You won't regret it.

its one of the best records ever put out, and dont listen to that guy, they were great live. i saw em in the basement at the knitting room in NYC, there was no ventalation, it was cramped as hell, everyone was sweating and stuffed, and it didnt matter at all. the kind of live energy you only get from real professionals

Wow, I'm not sure what to say about this album. I heard a few songs off of it, Non-Objective Portrait of Karma and Crowquill, and imidiately fell in love with the band. So I went out and bought the album.

This album is so good that I can't jus sit down and listen to one song on it, I need to listen to the whole thing.

The mix of male and female vocals in it is beautifully done. It almost seems as though they are arguing. The sound overall is a much more experimental CTTS then their demo's were, but it is also much better in my opinion.

If you want a good idea of what they sound like, picture Radiohead playing hardcore. Yeah this album is at the top of my list.

I suggest that anyone who is a fan of Post-Hardcore should go out and buy this album today, you won't be disappointed.

Once in a great while, an album comes anong that's absolutely brilliant, no matter how you slice it. This is one of them.

Circle Takes the Square's As The Roots Undo is only 8 songs long. But it's more powerful than most albums around it. The lyrics are beautifully well crafted, and the songs themselves will have you screaming along with them.

It starts off with some low static, whistling, and chanting. Then comes Same Shade as Concrete. "Rejoice, rejoice a noble birth!" and we're off.

All in all, this is a beautiful album. I only wish it had more on it.

Oh man, I don't even know where to start, this album has got to be the craziest and most addictive album I've listened to in a while. I challenge anyone out there to try and listen to just a few tracks and NOT listen to the whole album. It's so well orchestrated that it's impossible not to go through the whole album. As for the songs themselves, there's nothing else like them. Most would be quick to label them as hardcore or grindcore, but that's only a mere fraction of what this beast is. Starting off with a haunting intro, they burst in with "Rejoice... REJOICE A NOBLE BIRTH!!" and you're hit in the face by a raw blast of grinding guitars, frantic thrashing drums, and a double deuce of male female screams. In between the violent thrashings are disturbingly soft spoken vocals, eerie ghostly notes, and other strange noises meant to pull you deeper into their strange world. From the monk-like chants at the end of "Interview at the Ruins" to the tragically beautiful "Non-Objective Portrait of Karma," they prove they're not just trying to be loud. Near the end "Kill the Switch" combines many of these elements in the nine minute plus track into a cohesive yet unsettling aural collage with lyrics to match the complex yet addictive song. If you're a fan of hardcore, be prepared to have your views challenged by this refreshingly schizophrenic album.