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Many people are afraid to touch this album, and it seems to be well warranted. A few song samples reveal an abrasive texture with much dissonance and harsh vocals, with little to no melody anywhere. The Silent Circus is ultimately, yes, a deathcore album. But the musicianship is still top-notch and there are spots of beauty all over the place, and the compositions still fit together well, even compared to their later albums.
Mainly the biggest problems with the album are some of the harsh vocals. The growls are typical growled core vocals, while the higher pitched screams are more pain-induced hardcore styles. However, fans of deathcore will probably appreciate the former anyways and fans of bands like Converge will enjoy the latter anyways.
This album is typical of prog metal albums where the long songs tend to be better. The opening two tracks that make up the song "Lost Perfection" are full of interesting riffs and shifting tempi, typical of BTBAM's style. There's still melody to be heard, and a few bluesier metal riffs elsewhere, a treat for those who listen to the album completely instead of dismissing it as a complete mess of dissonance.
People will also point to "Mordecai", which in the first half goes through tech metal acrobatics and deathcore styled crashing atmospheres, but slowly becomes more melodic, until the chords become a sea of harmonies and Paul Waggoner busts out one of his more famous soloes. This track and the two following tracks it segues into feature the most melody on the album, even breaking into conventional songwriting on "(Shevanel, Take 2)".
The other longer song is "Ad a Dglgmut", which opens again with more of the chaos and thrashing found on the the rest of the album, while eventually busting into a calmer section, albeit not as uproariously beautiful as the previous "Mordecai".
The rest of the tracks are shorter and while technically top notch and compositionally solid, may turn listeners away. Though "Aesthetic", a song about the quartet on the Titanic, has some interesting sweeps and some interesting breakdowns. The hidden track, "Man's Land" at the end of the record is also quite worth listening to and is quite humorous.
All in all, The Silent Circus is undeniably a worthy listen. Fans of more abrasive styles will like it, technical metal fans should find it interesting, and Between the Buried and Me fans will find it essential.