Back in 2002, clubland’s fiercest rockers Death In Vegas (Richard Fearless and Steve Hellier) released "Scorpio Rising", an album full of heavy grooves and superstar singers such as Liam Gallagher, Hope Sandoval and Paul Weller. The broody, muscular sound posited on the album was what we had come to call “classic DIV”: a sinewy blend of soul, folk, club, dub and rock.
Who would have guessed that two years later the duo would be divorced from their record label, prematurely released from production duties on the Oasis recording sessions and mining their krautrock fetish for all it’s worth to create a fourth long-player? Recent events must have had quite a cathartic effect on the pair for them to so abundantly discard their trademark chunky textures and high profile guests and make instead a much more minimal and anonymous offering.
Opener "Ein Fur Die Damen" (one of around six German track titles) is a definite krautrock statement, it’s spirited, driven grooves and coruscating synths conjuring up some of the faded spirit of 70s Teutonic bands like Can and Neu! The duo’s next trick is to take Kraftwerk’s seminal "Tour De France" riff and make it sound about as enticing as a British Rail sandwich.
The rest of the album veers drunkenly between similar peaks and troughs. The persistent thrum of "Sons Of Rother” (named after the founder of Neu!), the pared-down ambience of "Candie McKenzie" and the bassy shamanism of "Heil Zanax" (featuring vocalist Susan Delane) are all high points, offering a unique fusion of disembodied electronica, exploratory rock ramblings and old school synth-pop.
But other hybrids don’t come off quite so well. “Anita Berber”, “Kontroll” and “Come Over To Our Side” are all disturbingly below-par; too vacillating, too vacuous or simply too cringingly clichéd. The forays into early Warp-style bleep‘n’bass, classic Kraftwerkian splendour and resonant Jah Wobble bass might be acceptably ‘retro’ or ‘experimental’ but they sound largely devoid of direction and/or commitment.
As attractive as the album is in places, the superior moments are not nearly arresting or risqué enough to save the album from a sense of self-conscious claustrophobia. Thus despite it’s dramatic and mysterious title, "Satan’s Circus" ultimately fails to capture or update the magickal mysticism of the music it seeks to draw from. And as failings go, that’s a pretty big one.
