Kyuss - ...And the Circus Leaves Town (1995)^{Release ID: 165}

Kyuss were really on a roll in the early to mid 90’s. 1992’s “Blues For The Red Sun” & 1994’s “Welcome To Sky Valley” saw the band going from strength to strength. They’d finally found their sound & were consistently producing stoner rock anthems of the highest quality. It was great to see them identifying their weaknesses & improving on them with each release while also challenging themselves with more expansive psychedelic material. I don’t recall having any awareness of the internal problems the band were experiencing at the time so the release of 1995’s “…And The Circus Leaves Town” was still highly anticipated on my part. I wasn’t hoping for anything drastically different from “Welcome To Sky Valley”. I was however looking forward to some more subtle enhancements on their already impressive sound & some further experimentation with psychedelics.  

The very bass-heavy production leaves “…And The Circus Leaves Town” sounding a bit different to the previous two Kyuss albums. It has it’s positives but I personally prefer their previous production style. I can see what they are trying for here but I think they’ve pushed the bass guitar a little too far up in the mix & it minimizes the impact of the guitars. The kick drum & toms also disappear into the mix at times & the vocals are not as up-front as I would have liked but I can’t say the production is off-putting. It certainly still suits the band’s sound & it comes down to a matter of taste as to which is your preference. Kyuss haven’t taken too many risks with the song-writing here. The style is very similar to previous material but the hooks are perhaps a bit less obvious & I find that the album requires a bit more attention before opening up. I think that has impacted on the public perception that “…And The Circus Leaves Town” is a lesser album than the previous two releases & I don’t find that to be the case.  

The consistency of the song-writing is excellent as usual. There isn’t a weak track here (unless you include the hidden tracks). Album highlights “One Inch Man” & “Tangy Zizzle” are right up there with Kyuss’ best material while opener “Hurricane”, “Phototropic”, the very Queens Of The Age-ish “El Rodeo” & instrumentals “Thee Ol’ Boozeroony” &“Jumbo Blimp Jumbo” are all high quality stoner rock tracks. Once again Kyuss have decided to extend the album with pointless hidden tracks though & I see very little merit in placing 20+ minutes of silence after the final track only to include a distinctly disposable two minute piece at its completion. Why do bands decide to do this? Is it a record company driven decision? Whatever the bands motives are I find it really annoying & would prefer if it didn’t exist.  

Contrary to popular opinion I don’t find “…And The Circus Leaves Town” to be lagging behind Kyuss’ two classic records. “Welcome To Sky Valley” is my clear favourite but I struggle to split this one & “Blues For The Red Sun” for second place. I may just slightly prefer "Blues For The Red Sun" by the barest of margins. The band has shown no sign of a drop in quality & consistency here but the album is a slow burner & improves with repeat listens. Sometimes albums like that end up being the ones that stay with you the longest though. Perhaps a few more risks could have been taken & there could probably have been a few more highlights but it’s really hard to fault any of this music. There aren’t many stoner rock bands on the planet that can match Kyuss even when they’re on auto-pilot & I’m really not sure that they were by the evidence supplied here.