An Emerald City- Circa Scaria
3/10

Heralded by the ‘old boys’ of the New Zealand music press as the greatest NZ album in recent history, it perhaps proves that they really need to get out more and engage in the country’s music scene. Circa Scaria is nothing new at all, I have an Iranian friend who once played me some traditional Persian music, it sounded a little bit similar to this. The difference is that it was made by people who had no intention of ever becoming famous. An Emerald City’s showcase of Persian influenced, instrumental post-rock is far from inspiring, it goes nowhere, bleeding from the cave it was recorded in like some kind of rotting corpse that hasn’t got the will power to even try and drag itself out. It sounds like they’re trying way too hard to fit in without knowing really where to go; let’s be honest, it’s fantasy metal with violin, and metal fans are never going to buy that. The people who dig this are those nationalist music reviewers who still treat NZ music as a genre and think that anything made here must only be compared with other music made in NZ. Measured against this tiny speck on the earth, I’d still take Sora Shima’s Destroy Electronica, at least they had the sense to keep things simple. It takes An Emerald City thirty five minutes to oppose upon us something that doesn’t sound like a poor Persian gypsy knock-off. ‘A Strange Sense Of Reality’ is what they should have been doing all along, although it would work better if it was slowed down to create some sort of romantic imagery, like the first four minutes of final track ‘As The Storm Comes In’, which has a calm relaxing quality, the rest is just far too intense. Up until ‘A Strange Sense Of Reality’ it’s impossible to distinguish between the songs, towards the end it is broken up, but the ending fades away without making any kind of impact.
Nick

Posted by Nick Fulton under Album, Reviews