It was like glass flying past my ears… catching instrument reflections; fragments within… Those guitars embossing rich shapes, tangles of crayoned majesty … the noise was incredible, satisfying, full of raw claws … that clarinet slaughter smearing… vocals eaten by delay… can’t believe it’s taken me this long to catch Bardo Pond live, but that rich sandpapery vibe was well worth the wait…
Right from the start out Circle were on a full-on Hawkwind homage… plying plenty of explosive riffology, rocking out the feel good energy in glittery spandex and studded metal … Mika Ratto giving out a real show of Norseman fist. Coming across like a Finnish Freddy Mercury strutting the stage part ringmaster/part rock cliché Lenin… adding vocal syrups and keyboard lightning , stirring up the soup, yodelling all shamanic into the mic… They diverted into some artsy DNA crawl of guitar strings and collapsing tempos, but the rhythmic highway was never that far away as they tore it up again and again in heady psycho nautical directions, slapping that well worn counter of rock/metal with fresh meat… One of the best croft gigs of 2011...
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