Rocking Horse Music Club: Circus of Wire Dolls

After their 2019 Which Way the Wind Blows tribute to Genesis’s guitarist Anthony Phillips, progressive rock collective RHMC returns with Circus of Wire Dolls, a rock opera that tells the story of a man who creates a miniature circus out of wire, string, and cloth, and how the characters reflect his own life.

The core of this collective is comprised of songwriters Brian Coombes (vocals and keyboards), Justin Cohn (vocals), and Patrik Gochez (vocals, guitars, and keyboards), along with drummer Eric Wagley, bass player Brenden Harisiades, and guitarists Myron Kibbee and Mike McAdam. This time they halve also brought on board names like Tim Bowness, David Cross and John Hackett to add their instrumental skills and arrangements.

I will start my thoughts on this album by stating the exquisite and detailed song crafting, in the same vein of acts like The Flower Kings, Spock’s Beard and Big Big Train, a bit theatrical and dramatic at spots, with that Broadway-style concept that, in this particular case, would have been better with a tighter continuity between songs, and perhaps with half the songs in total, just a single disc… but maybe that’s just me…

Besides the great musicianship coming from the core of the band, it’s fair to mention the fabulous melodic saxophone courtesy of Greg Hawkes, the spectacular harp courtesy of Mikaela Davis, and the hypnotic cello courtesy of Jeremy Harman, unquestionable enhancers of the output. The male-female shared lead vocals are profoundly used throughout the album, and it reminds me a little of Kaipa, not my cup of tea but well build and performed, just a little to romantic and sticky for my ears.

There are more than a handful of good songs, like “So Little Left�, “It’s not About You�, and “Cut from a Different Cloth� from Disc one, and “0300�, “Every Show must end�, and “Circus Waltz� from Disc two, but none of those will top the title track for me, and they are too few for the more than 90 minutes of duration of a mostly laid-back sounding record.

To fully digest this album and its contents is quite a commitment, one that not many listeners will want to deal with, because unfortunately is not easy to find the time to invest and re-invest in such a task, but for those who are into this type of epic releases and appreciate the effort made by the artists, then this album could be a great curiosity. Cheers

Track list:
Disc one:
1. Prologue: Riverside (3:47)
2. Circus of Wire Dolls (8:45) (*)
3. Packed Up (3:28)
4. Senseless Sky (2:45)
5. Animate in 5/8 (4:13)
6. To Reach the Other Side (2:58)
7. Will you be my Downfall? (3:52)
8. So Little Left (3:58) (*)
9. It’s not About You (4:05) (*)
10. Trapeze Waltz (4:13)
11. Burn (4:41)
12. Cut from a Different Cloth (4:06) (*)

Disc two:
1. Face of Rain (3:58)
2. 0300 (4:54) (*)
3. SY22 (5:15)
4. Lost a Piece of Me (1:28)
5. House Party at Jack’s (1:58)
6. Flowers in November (4:00)
7. Every Show must End (8:00) (*)
8. All Shall be Well (4:05)
9. Circus Waltz (4:03)
10. Coda: Slide Down the Cellar Door (6:21)

Added: June 29th 2023
Reviewer: Jose Antonio Marmol
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 540
Language: english

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