The Silent Circus
The Silent Circus is the second studio album by American progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. Released October 21, 2003, through Victory Records. It was their first album to be released through Victory Records after their departure from Lifeforce Records. It was re-released in 2006 with a bonus DVD included. The album includes 10 tracks with a hidden song titled "The Man Land" hidden at the end of "The Need for Repetition". It is notable for being the band's only album not to be produced by Jamie King. The album was remixed and remastered in 2020.
| The Silent Circus | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 21, 2003 October 3, 2006 (reissue)[1] | |||
| Recorded | 2003 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 52:56 | |||
| Label | Victory | |||
| Producer |
| |||
| Between the Buried and Me chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Re-issue cover | ||||
 Cover for the reissue of The Silent Circus | ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [7] |
| PopMatters | 8/10[6] |
| Punknews | [5] |
This is the band's last release with guitarist Nick Fletcher and bassist Jason King and only album with drummer Mark Castillo.
A music video was released for the song "Mordecai"; the video starts with the first nineteen seconds of "Reaction" before transitioning into "Mordecai".
The two part song "Lost Perfection" are the first songs in the Parallax story, which would further develop in "Prequel of the Sequel" from their album Colors and "Swim to the Moon" from their album The Great Misdirect. The Parallax story later became its own EP and album respectively, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and The Parallax II: Future Sequence.
Reception
The album received generally positive reviews from professional critics. Adrien Begrand of PopMatters opined in a positive review for the album, "The Raleigh, North Carolina, band had sliced and diced its way through multiple extreme metal subgenres, bridging the "math metal" complexity of the Dillinger Escape Plan, the godly hardcore of Converge, the furious technical death metal of Nile, and the more melodic strains of mid-'90s Swedish death metal with astonishing dexterity."[6] Kurt Morris of Allmusic commented, "One minute the band may be playing thrash metal and the next they're flowing into death growls and thick guitar riffs. They certainly show a mastery of the hardcore and metal styles that many bands their age can take a lot longer to understand. The metal take on things can seemingly change in a flash as lead singer Tommy Rogers fleshes out his vocals and utilizes the keyboards to create something that sounds more like it should be on a Smashing Pumpkins album".[7]
In 2021, The Silent Circus was included on BrooklynVegan's list of "15 Seminal Albums From Metalcore's Second Wave (2000-2010)."[8]
Track listing
All lyrics are written by Tommy Rogers; all music is composed by Between the Buried and Me
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Lost Perfection A) Coulrophobia" | 4:13 |
| 2. | "B) Anablephobia" | 3:01 |
| 3. | "Camilla Rhodes" | 4:49 |
| 4. | "Mordecai" | 5:48 |
| 5. | "Reaction" | 2:01 |
| 6. | "(Shevanel Take 2)" | 3:14 |
| 7. | "Ad a dglgmut" | 7:38 |
| 8. | "Destructo Spin" | 4:46 |
| 9. | "Aesthetic" | 3:45 |
| 10. | "The Need for Repetition" (song ends at 6:16, a hidden track entitled "The Man Land" begins at 11:16.) | 13:37 |
| Total length: | 52:56 | |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Lost Perfection A) Coulrophobia" (live) | 3:51 |
| 2. | "Lost Perfection B) Anablephobia" (live) | 3:00 |
| 3. | "Destructo Spin" (live) | 4:09 |
| 4. | "Roboturner" (live) | |
| 5. | "All Bodies" (live) | |
| 6. | "Mordecai" (live) | |
| 7. | "Alaska" (live) | |
| 8. | "Metal Injection Interview" | |
| 9. | "Mordecai" (music video) | 6:07 |
| 10. | "Alaska" (music video) | 3:58 |
Personnel
Between the Buried and Me
- Tommy Giles Rogers – lead vocals, keyboards
- Paul Waggoner – lead guitar, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, vocals on "Shevanel Take 2"
- Nick Fletcher – rhythm guitar
- Jason King – bass guitar
- Mark Castillo – drums
Production
- Matthew Ellard – production, mixing, recording
- Between the Buried and Me – production
- Carl Platter – drum technician
References
- "Between The Buried And Me: The Silent Circus (Re-Issue) CD - Victory Merch". Victory Records. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- Sacher, Andrew (March 8, 2021). "15 Seminal Albums From Metalcore's Second Wave (2000-2010)". Brooklyn Vegan. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
- Hill, John (June 28, 2017). "25 Best Metalcore Albums of All Time". Loudwire. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
- Hartmann, Graham (October 21, 2013). "Between the Buried and Me, 'Mordecai' (Live) – Video of the Day". Loudwire. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
- Conduit (November 21, 2003). "Between The Buried And Me - The Silent Circus". Punknews. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- Begrand, Adrien (February 28, 2007). "Between the Buried and Me: The Silent Circus". PopMatters. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
- Morris, Kurt. "The Silent Circus - Between the Buried and Me | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
- Sacher, Andrew (March 8, 2021). "15 Seminal Albums From Metalcore's Second Wave (2000-2010)". Brooklyn Vegan. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
- "The Silent Circus (Re-Issue)". Amazon. Retrieved March 26, 2014.