Photo by David Judge
Since the passing of Neal Casal, Circles Around the Sun has played with some of the best guitarists in the scene: Eric Krasno, Jared Matson, and Scott Metzger. The latter is on-hand to hold down lead guitar duties on CATS current east coast tour, which hit Brooklyn Bowl this past weekend for two nights of psychedelic jams.
Metzger works naturally with the project; of course he does. He's a musician's musician who is extremely capable of fitting in as a rhythmic/texture guy, and can of course step into a mind-melting solo on the drop of a dime, something he's gotten really great at over the recent years as JRAD has grown into a band that plays larger venues.
It seems important to Metzger to try not to emulate his buddy Neal Casal, but rather tip his hat to him as he finds his own voice within the band's guidelines. Since there's no lyrics and very few hooks or 'chorus'-type moments, Circles does a lot of communicating with each other while playing. On the 2/28 "Halicarnassus", keyboardist Adam Macdougal did a wonderful job at pushing Metzger to greater heights as he took the lead early on in the 22-minute (!!) jam.
The band played heavily from their two releases and also drew from their forthcoming, self-titled album which is coming out on March 13. On Friday night, they debuted a funky, disco-tinged number called "Money's No Option". I believe they had copies for sale at the merch booth, so if you're catching one of their upcoming shows on this tour, definitely keep an eye out for that.
Full audio from both shows were taped, mixed and released on the Archive by Eric McRoberts. Night one here, and night two here.