OUTSKIRTS OF REALITY

Born from the ashes of Talent bands such as Black Jester , Moonlight circus release their first CD, and though I have only played this a few times I can already tell that their choice in a vocalist wasn`t a good one. Black jester (Moonlights former name) was a well rounded band they had great progressive music (all be it heavy) , great lyrics but they come under criticism for their weak vocals and this mutation from Black Jester into Moonlight circus has done nothing to improve the situation , in fact I think this time the vocals sung by Alessandro Secchi are even less suited and far weaker, in fact I can hardly understand a word he is singing and his range is pathetic, makes you wonder why a band with Dream Theater chops would choose him in the first place ? The songs on Outskirts of reality has decent lyrics though the songs are not all that well constructed. If I was going to give advice to anybody thinking about purchasing this CD , get Black Jesters "The Divine Comedy" instead. Moonlight circus is more heavyer than Black Jester and though they still have progressive tendancies they don`t deliver a satisfying result not to my tastes anyway! Outskirts is a waisted effort and fails to impress 4/10

Moonlight Circus are a band from Treviso (Italy) born from the ashes of other bands (Black Jester, Helreidh). As they wrote on their website, this album "can be described as a combination of songs of different tastes and genres, inside the landscape of progressive metal". The main influences are Dream Theater, Queensryche, Helloween, but here, in my opinion, the band was "too much influenced" and the results are not outstanding.

After the short instrumental intro "Nightfall" comes the weak "Silver Surfer", just a power metal track with awful vocals (on the verse "Forever fly, lonely herald, fly lonely lonely lonely lonely herald fly" the singer, in my opinion, seems an annoying imitation of Robert Plant!). "I am twisting in the night / With all my fears and doubts inside / Here's the anguish coming once again. Inside this room my soul burns / Inside this room the fear / Inside this room the past returns." : the "claustrophobic" and dilated "Two Shadows" is a little bit better, with a good interaction between guitar and keyboards. "Whirls of the Past", "Ballad for a Falling Star" and "July Days" are not bad but absolutely nothing special. The last track, the long and complex "Outskirts of Reality", for me is the best track on this album, with many changes of rhythm and a nice guitar work.

In the whole "Outskirts of Reality is a good album, though not an essential one. The most evident flaws here are in the vocal parts. Probably for Moonlight Circus it would be better try to sing in Italian and put the translation of the lyrics in the booklet than to insist in singing in English with a bad accent and in an almost unnatural way.

This band from Italy and did a great job here, a pleasent album with good pieces. In the band are two ex members of Black Jester guitarist Paolo Viani and drummer Alberto Masiero, and another thing to mention one of the albums of Black Jester is named Welcome to the moonlight circus so the named of the band is taker from this album. Very little to add here, just the weakest point on Outskirts of reality is the voice, not realy bad but sometimes is annoying. Anyway a good album with some great pieces like Whirls Of The Past and the title track, the rst are also good but not intristing. So a 3 star album for me, good but not essential, but if you like bands like Ulysses, Azazello, Zen, Vanden Plas and the mother of this band Black Jester you will find intristing elements here.