In Circles - Demo (2008); Plus Contempt! Derision! Scorn!

As the year comes to a close, tradition has it that you will find egregious list after list ranking the best albums of the past year, churned out in a fashion befitting the craftsmanship of an assembly line, by blogs and magazines everywhere; all of them joyfully eager to get their opinions out before people stop caring about where exactly each individual journalist gave placement to one 'Lil Wayne' and move on to more interesting list-related activities, like People's upcoming countdown of the "10 Funniest Drug-Related Addictions Celebrities Faced This Year". And so too, as tradition has mandated it, will I indulge in an eventual year-end list, regardless of whether or not I (unlike the magazines I have so callously derided) have an audience that readily gives a fuck.

But I will not do that yet. (Why?) BECAUSE THERE'S STILL ALMOST A MONTH TO GO. GAWD. WHAT ABOUT THE ARTISTS RELEASING THEIR ALBUMS LATE IN THE YEAR WITH THE SPECIFIC INTENTION OF MAKING BIG MONEY ON CHRISTMAS SALES? DO NOT THEY DESERVE CRITICAL ACCLAIM AS WELL? CAPITAL LETTERS

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Anyhoo, I figured in keeping up with the theme of 2008, I have decided to share with you one of my favourite finds from the past year, a 4-song demo released this year by In Circles. I couldn't tell you anything about them, or even where I found this (I forgot). Checking out their Lastfm page reveals nothing about the band, except that they have a grand total of 27 listeners (and a healthy portion of free downloads that don't appear on this demo). So in lieu of any real background information, I will just assume that they took their name from the Sunny Day Real Estate song of the same name. There. I said it on the internet, so now it's true.


In Circles play a jumpy kind of post-hardcore, merging the raw explosiveness of hardcore with a gentler, SDRE-tinged sense of melody. On this demo, they focus mainly on the former, to surprisingly stellar results. Opener "Echo" begins with a furious energy reminiscent of a less progressive City of Caterpillar, as the singer screams out-of-breathedly how he was "gasping for air" over the frenzied burst of the guitars. It is this continued energy, shown both in the voiced frustrations of the vocals as well as the constantly changing and progressing guitar lines, that makes this demo exceptional. The band has all the rawness and enthusiasm of a garage band, with an instrumental prowess and sense for composition far beyond what would be expected of them. What you have on this demo is just over 10 minutes of dynamic and intense post-hardcore that takes an established structure and plays the hell out of it.

Here's hoping that now, with my substantial endorsement, we can get that total up to 30 listeners.

In Circles - Demo