Circa Survive - On Letting Go

To call this Circa Survive's sophomore album may give a bit of a false impression. The members of the band all spent significant time in other semi successful bands, notably; Saosin, This Day Forward, Taken, and Marigold. With as much experience as the members brought, it was no surprise that their Equal Vision full length debut “Juturna” seemed like the polished work of seasoned veterans. In comparison to Juturna, On Letting Go is a more diverse, catchy, and complete release on so many levels.

The song writing is more inventive than formulaic, the production is discrete and lush, avoiding the delay-laden mush that plagued some of Juturna, the melodies have more strength, and vocalist Anthony Green is still unbelievably high on the register, the kind of vocals that makes you feel like an idiot for even trying to sing along, unless you're a girl. Spending some time to warm up to the acquired taste that is his voice is well worth the effort. The rhythm section always falls in line, and mostly reminds me of one of my favorite bands, Thrice. As the rhythms dodge conventions, employing some 5/4 and 6/8 (see "In The Morning and Amazing"), Nick Beard (bass, cool name) and Steve Clifford (drums) are always in time, while guitarists Colin and Brendan always fall in line with a perfect balance of ambience, angularity, and harmony.

In listening, I gave each of the songs a fair shake, and found at least half were among the best songs the band has put together. For starters, check out In The Morning and Amazing, Semi Constructive Criticism, The Difference Between Medicine and Poison is the Dose, and Your Friends Are Gone. The other songs, although not as remarkable, were still enjoyable and certainly rise above the classification of "filler" material. I'm not one to fault a band for not writing all perfect songs, so I'll gladly take this opportunity to place this release in my top 5 of 2007. In addition, as a Decapolis writer, I'm only allowed a few Four Star reviews. This is one of them.