The instrumental rock troupe Circles Around the Sun has been gathering up a following ever since it first gestated from guitarist Neal Casal’s assignment in 2015 to come up with some intermission music for the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well dates. Casal brought in keyboardist Adam McDougall, bassist Dan Horne and drummer Mark Levy to help him record the music and the music was so well received by audiences, making a full-time band out of this project soon became an imperative.
I think Casal & Co. achieved liftoff because they made their musical porridge just right: Too mellow and it becomes background music, too busy and it starts sounding too much like – gasp! – jazz. CATS strike the perfect balance between the two, riding a blissful, psychedelic vibe through melodies that are tuneful enough on their own to not cry out for lyrics.
Circles Around the Sun is their third long player, a retreat from the sprawling, double disc jam-palooza Let It Wander. This time, the gang went for concise grooves found in seven songs averaging about six minutes in length.
There’s an elephant in this room that we might as well acknowledge here: About a week after the final mixes were done, a severe blow was dealt to the band when Casal killed himself. (We sadly had to report on this before.) But in a note he left behind, he wished for the group to carry on without him, and they plan to tour using a rotating cast of guitarists to fill in. Circles Around the Sun makes no mention of his absence from our world, save for a simple “dedicated to,” the same salute to a suddenly deceased band member that the Allman Brothers Band gave Duane Allman on the sleeve of Eat a Peach.
That short, simple salute is perhaps a message that commiserating the loss shouldn’t cloud the music that was made right before it, because the music is quite good. Circles Around the Sun share some Southern rock DNA with the Allman Brothers to go along with the psychedelia and Blow By Blow-era Jeff Beck, but without the preponderance of endless soloing. It’s all about a feel-good vibe you can even dance to, and that’s all by design.
You’ll be dancing right away with the disco pulse that kicks off “Babyman.” Even though that pulse comes courtesy of an old-school drum machine, that song is catchy as hell, the Moog-led chorus bleeding over an irresistible funk-rock construction. That same Moog sound carries over to mid-tempo “You Gotta Start Somewhere,” complemented by MacDougall’s clavinet and pulsing electric piano along with Casal’s easygoing, tasteful guitar work. The pace slows down further for “Leaving (Rogue Lemon)” but they rightly let this soul-soaked number simmer a little longer.
The four-on-the-floor feelin’ returns for the next two tunes: “Detroit Dos” crash-lands into a psychotropic haze that offers a brief respite from the mirror ball as it segues right into “Landline Memories.” Casal’s guitar leads occasionally lends an acerbic counterpoint to MacDougall’s mellow tones, as with his spotlight on the funky syncopation “Pete Jive.” “Money’s No Option” is perhaps the most overtly disco song here, thanks in part to Horne’s Bernard Edwards bass line.
Driven seemingly entirely by the pursuit of analog fun, Circles Around the Sun made its eponymous record in a joyful spirit that nothing can douse, not even the sudden passing of the band’s founder. Circles Around the Sun is scheduled for release on March 13, 2020.
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