Flange Circus - Katabasis

I always find myself in a position of doubt when a band comes up to me with a genre they made up for themselves. In this case that would be Manchester’s Flange Circus, a self-proclaimed hauntronica band whose debut album “Katabasis” came out last year via analoguetrash. But those doubts simmered out as I listened to the album; a bristling love tale of all things spooky and those that go bump in the night. It certainly isn’t perfect and can get rather stale here and there, but it’s an overall fun little instrumental album with clean production and some rather nice beats. 

The intro ‘Curse of Milltown’ is fine all on its own; a synth laden, sci-fi piece reminding me of old documentaries trying to prove the existence of UFOs. Short and sweet at one-minute and forty-one seconds. ‘It’s a Tree’ comes up next and I found the opening moment of the song to be a bit painful. For the first minute I had to listen to the same trio of synths as the main focal point. While they sounded nice and spooky at first, they drove me to boredom as they continued on even into the meat of the song. The rest of the track is a fairly decent ride into smooth rock; I honestly imagined this going along well with one of the chase scenes from the cult 70s movie The Warriors. 

Rhizolith is where I saw the talent of the band in full for the first time. Drum ticks and a low-brow synth start off the track before it cuts to some ambient noise, then brings back the beat. Not exactly a dancefloor killer like you might reckon a darksynth song should be, but it keeps up the cinematic air. ‘We’re in a Now’ sounds like something you might here during the end credits scene of a movie. A slow crawl featuring organs, samples, and spooky keys. While it hits many of the right sounds, I don’t feel as if it was pulled together as grand as it could have been; perhaps the length of the track, running at nearly six minutes, killed some of the momentum for me. 

‘Dew Flirt’ is a rather boring track. Beautiful, sure, but for the first minute or so. Following that it turns into a pretty boring ambient piece with some thuds and birds chirping in the background. Nothing grand for that environment, and nothing I would want to come back to. ‘Three Foot Tall and Hairy’ serves up ambient synths in the background under a deep, slow, and groovy bassline. Like many of the other songs on the album, I did grow tired of it after two-minutes or so. Just not enough meat or variation to keep me going. 

 ‘I Find This Very Strange’ is a very by the books dark ambient piece. Vocal samples on top of barely anything, like a tape loop. It’s not very cinematic, it’s not very fun, and it’s not original. I’ve seen / heard this done trying to replicate some type of horror many times in the past and, at this point, it’s become more of a tired trope than anything else. I think the final minute-and-a-half of the song is the most interesting part, even if it does sound a bit campy. 

Believe it or not, but ‘GongSandalMan’ does begin, in fact, with the sound of a reverberating gong. What was most shocking to me, however, was the fact that this single gives out a fairly decent electronic dance beat with some EBM influence intertwined. Seemingly out of left field, of course. There’s plenty of deviation within the song, too, that keeps it fresh for its five-minute-and fifteen-second runtime. First, the gong as the intro for fifteen seconds, then straight into the hardened beat. Around the one-minute mark we get a trickling of electronic notes followed by an even more solid bassline. Distorted vocals join the fray. Around the two-minute and twenty-second mark we dip down into a bit of minimalism before falling into a pit of ominous synths and pulsing bass before rummaging our way back out into electro-industrial territory around the three-minute and forty-second mark. It’s a testament to just how playful Flange Circus could truly be. In a good way, it also throws the whole album off thematically. 

Unfortunately we fall back into mediocrity with the following song ‘Wasp Flute’. Just more ambient-electonica works that don’t live up to what I’ve heard previously on the album, or in the genre in general. Very stale very fast. The final song on the album ramps up tension with a decent display of rock meeting electronics in a brighter fashion. Again, not very fitting for the overall horror tone of the album, but a good display of musicianship. 

So, this album is nothing but a roller coaster ride of emotions. Lots of lows, lots of highs, but I think the major complaint I have with it is that Flange Circus doesn’t know what they want to do. Or, if they do, they’re throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. About half of it does, and the rest falls off. But what does stick is pretty damned good and I cannot fault them for trying something a bit different than everyone else.