Style: symphonic metal, power metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Nightwish, Galneryus, Unlucky Morpheus
Country: Japan
Release date: 19 June 2024
Not two weeks ago I got to write an intro paragraph about my love for Galneryus and how “Angel of Salvation” is my all time favorite song. I knew this review’s intro paragraph would also write itself because singer-extraordinaire Akane Liv is featured on the song to end all songs—she’s a bit quiet, but you can hear her backing vocals all over “Angel of Salvation,” first in the section around 10:00 and more prominently after 11:00. Safe to say, she’s a goddess in my power metal singer pantheon for a single feature because it’s pure perfection. Historically, though, I don’t find her main gig to be very exciting, but as always with a Liv Moon album, I go in with high hopes because of a single track from another band released over a decade ago. Will I be let down again by the lady who once touched flawlessness?
Obviously, Akane Liv’s vocals are the star of the show; for those unfamiliar with her, she won singer of the year at the Beckenham Festival and is internationally known for her excellent soprano vocals, her ceiling among the highest in symphonic metal. Her voice has a honeyed smoothness with a rich, full-bodied tonal quality, especially on her lower notes. She can sing for sure. But on Circle of Life, her vocal lines are simply boring, demonstrating little agility, range, nor an ability to perform in a variety of styles. She is capable of infinitely more than the safe vocal melodies displayed across Circle of Life, and that’s deeply vexing. Similarly, lots of the riffs are flat and lifeless—I particularly despise the main riff of “Flowing” because of its terrible synth tone, grating excuse for a melody, and frustratingly dull simplicity. And just like Liv, it’s not like Kentaro can’t play with skill; solos like on “Don’t Cry” and “Black Poison” would sound at home on any competent, shreddy Japanese power metal album. Same story goes for bassist Masaki and drummer Yuya Maeta who both show off flashy solos (see “This World…”) and fills, but they mostly play boring patterns like Robert Trujillo and Lars Ulrich, respectively.
Within the framework of bland performances, Circle of Life does have some solid tracks that any power metal fan should enjoy. Opener “Don’t Cry” shows off the high quality production and a well-composed structure, transitioning between several distinct sections smoothly; “Craving” is just an all-around bop; and “Nessun Dorma” breaks up the formula convincingly, and while I’m not totally convinced the weird, flow-killing intro of slow orchestration and Italian vocals works completely, I am just happy that the band changes it up—it also has Liv’s most versatile vocal performance on Circle of Life. If all the tracks had as much life as those three, this review would be a lot different.
Overall, the first half of the album is pretty consistently decent power metal, but the ending sequence kills everything. “Requiem – Moon Version -” is among the worst classical renditions I have heard on a metal album, totally uninspired and with a cliche track to beat. If you want to hear Mozart’s “Requiem” well-integrated into metal, listen to Archspire’s “Remote Tumor Seeker,” not the sickly saccharine and boring rendition from Liv Moon. Playing the melody at a million billion BPM well-integrated into the main riff of your masterpiece of a song is how you incorporate classical music into metal. Yet an order of magnitude worse than an uninspired classical cover is the absolutely maddening “Halloween Party,” the quirky holiday-inspired tune infuriating me in a similar way to Frore 5 Four. From the first notes of the song played on bells, I want to rip out my stereocilia one by one with tweezers so that I can avoid the cringe, and then when the band starts counting to ten aloud like it’s a goddamn children’s song… I wish I’d never picked up this damn album. The chorus also shows off the poor English lyrics of Liv Moon which I haven’t mentioned at this point. Usually I wouldn’t mention bad English power metal lyrics from a foreign band, but “Halloween Party” and the chorus of “Seize the Days” are absolutely some of the cheesiest lyrics I’ve ever heard and not in the endearing way of other power metal acts. They are straight up cringe: “Just wanna say / you can be anyone you want / you can choose the place / you like and live in anywhere / you were born to be as you are / and free” (excerpt from the chorus of “Seize the Days”). Finally, the closer opens up with a Christmas tune: why the hell are you releasing an album with Halloween and Christmas songs in June?? I just can’t understand what Liv Moon are trying to accomplish, and I hate everything about Circle of Life’s pointless, *annoying* final three tracks. What a load of bologna.
Not only did Liv Moon not use their talents well, they wrote some of the worst power metal I’ve had the displeasure of hearing from a professional band. If we pretend the album ends after seven tracks, Circle of Life is quite pleasant if a tad underwhelming, but I simply cannot listen to this album again lest I accidentally hear “Halloween Party” again. Back to Galneryus!
Recommended tracks: Don’t Cry, Nessun Dorma, Craving
You may also like: Everdawn, Elvellon, Hizaki
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Walküre Records – Facebook | Official Website
Liv Moon is:
– Akane Liv (vocals)
– Masaki (bass)
– Kentaro (guitars)
– Saori Hoshino (violin)
– Yuya Maeta (drums)
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