Shannon
Circus Of Lost Souls

Clowns has for long been personified as often as the nice and cheerful laughter producer as the evil, scary monster and the "clown arena" - circuses - has in its turn been both an arena for fun and games as well as horror (mostly in movies, though). On the cover for Shannons third album, called 'Circus Of Lost Souls' they've portrayed a clown that couldn't be described as anything but as he's up to no good and he's standing in front of a circus that gives me some bad feelings about the intentions of that circus. I think the album title puts the final nail in the coffin for the conclusion that this circus is probably not the nice one - it's a circus of lost souls.

Since the debut in 2003, Shannon has released one more album before this one (back in 2008) and the funny thing is that not only is it exactly five years between the releases, just like with the last release this album has seen two new members in the band.

The band play some sort of heavy metal and it's not far from the sound of the 80's with their hoarse vocalist and plenty of choirs joining in to every chorus while the music is simple and pretty straight to the point. There are a few exceptions to this on the album, like the odd power ballad squeezed in to the playlist and the somehow more power metal sounding opening track, called Ride To Live as well as the somewhat surprising cover at the very end of the album (originally made by Bronski Beat). However, I don't think 'Circus Of Lost Souls' is particularly varied just because of this and overall I'd say it's pretty much a traditional heavy metal album.

I think the band has come up with an interesting list of guests for this album but unfortunately the performance leaves some to wish for. Sure, it's an uptempo party (hard) rock album according to classic standards but I feel they have problems getting the music to leave some sort of mark behind it and nor does any particular quality distingusih itself anywhere. The biggest problem for the band is without doubt their anonymity and not their qualities as musicians because here and there something can catch your ear and then you'll hear it's far from a poor performance. For example we have the ballad Can't Stop The Rain and I Don't Need You Anymore - two songs that prooves Shannon has what it takes in their best moments, the only problem is to remember this when the album as a whole is so easy to forget.

If they only had something that really distinguished itself from the rest, I'd think 'Circus Of Lost Souls' would feel a whole lot better but as it goes it does what it does throughout the entire album and these are things we've heard before - done in this precise way too.

Overall I clearly wouldn't say it's a bad album or bad performance, but neither does it feel overly good. As a whole approved, there are things you could wish for but at the same time very little you'd urge them to have removed.

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