LEVIATAN

This album is one of my favourites among the huge catalog of Circle albums. After they had made many albums much more heavy metal and also ambient styles, this album went back to acoustic and folk style of Forest-album. This was also first album after Circle borrowed it´s name to another band, so there is ex-Falcon in the end of bands name. In this album Janne Westerlund took most of the vocal duties and you can hear Mika Rättös voice only very little in the background. Both Finnish and English is used.

Album starts in very calm and mysterios feelings. Kuohu (means foam) tells a spoken strange story about three rulers named ominous, rebel and chaos. The tale is from Pertti Nieminen´s book. There are also great soundeffects from NASA`s space sounds. The next Huone (means room) is really shamanistic piece, which tells a story about outsider. Same kind of atmosphere continues in Protectorate. Both these songs repeat same riffs through the whole songs, but like in many other songs, Circle can keep the songs interest growing them a little. Post-Kapitalismus (means post-capitalism) is very calm song, including short, but beautiful guitar solo. In the lyrics you may ask, is there lots of difference in capitalism and communism. The next Rakeita (=hailstones) is also calm instrumental with great keyboard work from Mika Rättö. Hiekkaristi (=sandcross) is one of the greatest Circle-songs, again the album direction goes into very deep. Also the lyrics has a profound theme connecting human inner life and the nature. Haavat (=wounds) is a kind of bluesy song telling tale about hobo. Valley is really folk song with heavy chorus singing all the time in the back. Again Mika Rättö does great keyboard work in the end of the song, it sounds like bubbling of a spring stream. Ending Viaton (=innocent) is a calm instrumental where acoustic guitar plays a sad melody. In this song you can also hear some spoken words and breathing from Mika Rättö.

This album is like a one day. When Kuohu starts in very misty morning feelings, Viaton ends it when person already seem to be sleeping in those breathing and few calm words. Also have to mention beautiful cover is painted by Janne Westerlund. Even I like all the styles of Circle, the acoustic albums have been the most favourites of mine. There are no dead moments in this album as there are at least some in the most of the Circle albums I´ve heard.