Robert Pollard’s freak-rock trio Circus Devils (2001 – 2017) says farewell with a pair of simultaneous releases. First is their 14th and final album Laughs Last, along with a best-of, double LP collection titled Laughs Best: The Kids Eat It Up (with DVD included). Laughs Best (The Kids Eat it Up) — a collection of 30 speedy deliveries from rock’n’roll’s Twilight Zone — will leave you exhausted, satisfied, and ready for another spin. Circus Devils’ entire mind-bending catalogue is represented here, including three songs from the brand new album. While the emphasis is on friendlier numbers, plenty of the trio’s prog psychedelia is also on display.
CD+DVD $16.00
02/24/2017
2XLP+DVD $31.00
02/24/2017
MP3 $9.90
02/24/2017
FLAC $11.99
02/24/2017
Robert Pollard’s freak-rock trio Circus Devils (2001 – 2017) says farewell with a pair of simultaneous releases. First is their 14th and final album Laughs Last, along with a best-of, double LP collection titled Laughs Best: The Kids Eat It Up (with DVD included). On Laughs Last, Pollard and the Tobias brothers romp breathlessly through multiple styles, starting off with the brash hotdogger, “Get Out Of My Way When I’m In Town.” Along the way we’re treated to the R.E.M. inflected “I Do the Nixon,” the organ-fuzz stomper “Teenage Rooster,” and the defiantly conventional “Crucified by The British Press.” Full of high humor and low drama, Laughs Last is the bold exclamation point at the end of Circus Devils’ 16-year run.
LP $16.00
02/24/2017
CD $12.00
02/24/2017
MP3 $9.90
02/24/2017
FLAC $11.99
02/24/2017
Stomping Grounds, the new full-length from Ohio-based Circus Devils, blasts off with a full side of brash, catchy rock ’n’ roll featuring the vocal bravado of Robert Pollard at full tilt. The album’s flipside detours into more psychedelic territory, offering a mixture of weird and pretty vignettes. Themes include the wasteland of regimented work-ruled living, sexually active geezers, lost girls, sick doctors and impressionistic recollections of the stomping grounds of boyhood. The album closes with the standout track “Sunflower Wildman (Remember Him?),” an anthemic prog-rock story song about a shut-in with dementia who chases boys away from his sunflower-choked yard. Stomping Grounds is high listening adventure, more exciting than 90% of the movies you will see this year.
LP $16.00
10/23/2015
CD $12.00
10/23/2015
MP3 $9.90
10/23/2015
FLAC $11.99
10/23/2015
***Exclusive A-side track "Girl in Space" backed with "Sunflower Wildman" from Circus Devils Stomping Grounds full length. Edition of 500 total.
7" $6.00
10/09/2015
MP3 $1.98
10/09/2015
FLAC $2.99
10/09/2015
On their thirteenth full-length album Escape, Circus Devils take a break from their brash psychedelic rock to gear down with a collection of acoustic ballads; friendly, lo-fi pop; and murky, otherworldly mood pieces. Once again, the trio delivers a mu- sical Twilight Zone where dream time and real time intermingle. For best results, listen late at night with headphones in a dark room.
LP $16.00
11/11/2014
CD $12.00
11/11/2014
MP3 $9.90
11/11/2014
FLAC $11.99
11/11/2014
Founded by Robert Pollard, completed by the Tobias brothers Todd and Tim, Ohio’s Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. They’re back with two new albums for 2013, both released on the same day! The trio continues to stretch their musical muscles on My Mind Has Seen the White Trick, a set of thematically unrelated pieces that at times ventures into jazzier territory. The terrain remains darkly mysterious, as always, with multiple layers to explore and reward the listener on repeated plays. Unlike the trio’s albums of the past, the music was written to match the vocal melodies, instead of the other way around. It may be the birth of a new Circus Devils.
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
CD $12.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Founded by Robert Pollard, completed by the Tobias brothers Todd and Tim, Ohio’s Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. They’re back with two new albums for 2013, both released on the same day! On When Machines Attack, the trio delivers a collection of eighteen sonic postcards from a probable future forecasting civilization’s approaching doom and the opportunities to cash in. The cast of improbable characters on display includes the “Controller” who introduces the album, along with Johnny Dart, Bad Earthman, Doberman Wasp, The Brain of the Iron Fist, and more. A satisfyingly unsettling listen from top to bottom (or perhaps unsettlingly satisfying?), it’s perfect for late-night car trips—driving alone, of course. Keep watching the skies!
LP $16.00
11/12/2013
CD $12.00
10/29/2013
MP3 $9.90
10/29/2013
Circus Devils hit the high seas with Capsized! (The exclamation point is part of the title!) Once again, the Ohio trio lead by Robert Pollard defies and transcends musical genres with a strangely coherent blend of soft rock, aggressive stompers and creepy soundscapes—plus the radio-friendly pop single “Cyclopean Runways.” Capsized! is cinema for the ears, taking the listener on a dark adventure with strange cargo, sirens, shipboard ghosts and bad soup. Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. Capsized! is their ninth album.
LP $13.00
10/25/2011
CD $13.00
10/25/2011
MP3 $9.90
10/25/2011
Robert Pollard is no stranger to Mars. As a precocious earthling, he wrote one of his first songs about the red planet, and even though Bob’s a peaceful man, the God of War’s favorite celestial body keeps orbiting through his deep-space consciousness (see Pinball Mars, “Queen of Mars”). Is the constellation Ursa Major even in the same quadrant of the sky as Mars? Ask an amateur astronomer like Gary Waleik, stellar singer / guitarist of Boston’s inimitable purveyors of experimental pop, Big Dipper. How these two astral music-makers wound up together in a classroom on the fabled planet of little green men and came up with The New Theory of Everything is anyone’s guess. Oxygen tanks? Solaris-era spacesuits? Floating in a tin can far above the earth? However their minds melded, one wonders what they left on the blackboard as they worked out their hypothesis. Given the scope and beauty of the resulting music, it’s surely a formula for perfect song-craft. The eleven tracks Pollard and Waleik beamed down to our humble blue planet for Mars Classroom’s debut LP range from the irrepressibly hooky, guitar-driven “New Theory” to the trippy moodiness of “Paint the Rocks” and the Brit-chime riffing and dirty-sweet harmonies of “It Had to Come From Somewhere.” The last track, an achingly languorous and slow-burning masterpiece called “Wish You Were Young,” features Pollard’s uncanny ability to put words together that can break your heart without plying a single sentimental cliché. The Hindi name for Mars comes from...
LP $13.00
03/29/2011
CD $13.00
03/29/2011
MP3 $9.90
03/29/2011
Following their 2009 all-acoustic release Gringo, Circus Devils are back in form with Mother Skinny. This time, the Devils run the gamut from ham-fisted hard rock thumpers to freak-pop to pretty, ethereal numbers, all weaved together in a seamless song-collage. As always, the band is steadfast in their unpredictability.Founded by Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices), Ohio's Circus Devils have been lurking under the radar since 2001. Mother Skinny is their eighth album.
LP $13.00
03/30/2010
CD $13.00
03/30/2010
MP3 $9.90
03/30/2010