Band:	Circus Of Rock
Album:	Lost Behind The Mask
Style:	Hard rock, Melodic heavy metal
Release date:	May 2023

01. Alive And Kickin [feat. Girish Pradhan]
02. Keep On Shining [feat. Jeff Scott Soto]
03. Holdin' The Gun [feat. Santiago Ramonda]
04. The War Is Over [feat. Mark Boals]
05. Nine Lives [feat. Mr. Lordi]
06. All I Need [feat. Pinja Pitkänen]
07. Truth Or Consequences [feat. Jay Lewis]
08. Death Makes No Sound [feat. Antony Parviainen]
09. Is It Any Wonder [feat. David Readman]
10. The Beast [feat. Svetlana Bliznakova]
11. Fix [feat. Peter James Goodman]
12. Heavy Fire [feat. Rafael Castillo]
13. Sunrise [feat. Bernie Shaw]
14. Edge Of Destiny [feat. Ilkka Keskitalo] [digital bonus]

It just has that little bit more than a standard hard rock album.

Truth be told, I picked this album, knowing full well that it could be quite a risky one. An album that has so many vocal talents on it is usually bound to have songs on it where I either don’t like the vocals of a vocalist or, in some cases, the vocal prowess of a certain singer is not used to their fullest potential. Sadly, I feel like both cases are present on Lost Behind The Mask; however, it happens less than on most of these type of collab albums. I see that as a plus, but more on that later.

For the most part, Circus Of Rock’s latest record has a standard hard rock vibe running through its veins. The drumming is one of the aspects that give this album a little bit of extra personality, due to it being more varied and interesting than a lot of other records in its genre. Synths are also present on Lost Behind The Mask. Clearly, this should also help with standing out a bit more from the crowded space of hard rock records, but even in this aspect, I feel like I have heard some of this stuff before. “Fix” is a prime example: the emphasizing they use around the 20-second mark sounds a lot like what Sabaton does. And by a lot, I really mean a lot. In the case of “Fix”, it sounds like a slower version of the synths in “The Last Stand”.

As far as the production goes, there isn’t much to complain about. The mix is crafted together really well: a nice and clean, yet powerful sound to the guitars, and drums with enough bite while also retaining a good amount of warmth. The bass glues it all together very nicely. Vocals are prominent enough as well, for the most part, although I feel like some of the voices would have benefitted from a tiny bit more prominence. It’s nothing too distracting, but it became more and more noticeable upon multiple listens.

That neatly brings me to the vocal performances. As I have mentioned before, a huge amount of different vocalists means a ton of vocal performances to consider. Overall, I would say that the performances are solid, but not exceptionally memorable. Unfortunately, some vocal performances feel a bit disconnected from the style of music that is being played. Mr. Lordi is the most obvious one to me. He sounds like he usually sounds, with a voice that sounds like he has eaten 15 pieces of sandpaper. I didn’t find a lot of depth in his performance, which made the whole song sound quite monotone. Not terrible, but really forgettable, which is strange given that the contrast between Mr: Lordi’s style of vocals and the music should make it anything but forgettable. Whether in a good or bad way... I leave that in the middle. I picked this as an example, but there are other moments where I felt there was a disconnect or unmemorable vocals. It’s just here it’s a combination of the two.

So yeah, as a whole, this album sounds fine. I can’t really say that anything really grabbed my attention, but it’s a solid hard rock album. Not one you’ll be remembering in a couple of years, but worth a listen.