CIRCLES

'Circles' is the sophomore album offered by this interesting crew from Düsseldorf. Five congenial guys are around here, musically offering a distinct blend of US westcoast / southern rock and psychedelic / space / kraut prog. And so the starter Sun Paradox is peering hard at The Doors style. Even the band's complete look and feel is oriented at the glorious 1970's psychedelia somehow, which is absolutely appealing when it comes to an old fart like me in particular.

Quite remarkable und unconventional, the vocals, contributed by Marcel Rösche, are a special trademark, this given in a rather theatrical, mournful, wailing manner, if you will. Roation Of Earth And Love offers a nice mellow outfit, though also an intriguing spacey instrumental core, unfortunately faded out way too early. Vintage synths are to detect frequently. And hey, noted by way of example, they can be proud of having such an excellent bass player like Thibaut Sanli aboard.

Towards the end, represented by the two more extended tracks Gravity and In Search Of Time, LOVE MACHINE are gradually leaving the safe way concerning song writing and outworking. Several album parts will give you clues about their live presence, which happens in a truely vivid manner, more edgy and powerful in general, featuring some risks and unbounded jamming attitude including twin guitar appearance, close to some wellknown US bands.

And so - without exception - excellent musicianship is guaranteed here on 'Circles', which is thematically dealing with gravitation, rotation and time, the never-ending coming and going, the constitution of the universe, to sum it up. Available on LP and CD as well as digital download this is just another fine album released on German Tonzonen Records, I empathically recommend to explore the label's extended back catalogue, which is spiked with a lot of vinyl offers. 3.5 stars.