### Circensa: Circensa

#### 18/10/13 || Pr0nogo

Circensa is an “atmospheric post-black metal” two-man effort from the fabled lands of Germany, and in a genre riddled with pretentious presentation, you’d think that the guys would take care not to inspire too many facepalms with their debut album, right? Well, you’d be wrong in this case, because Circensa’s self-titled debut EP somehow managed to irritate me while being starkly mediocre and dull.

The musical influences on this record are rather boundless, but they seem to take heed from all of the bad bands out there. The guitars sound almost exclusively like some kind of pop-punk reincarnation of Blink-182, which conflict directly with the undermixed vocals that can barely be heard over the simple power chords that are constantly being played. Those vocals themselves might not be terribly out of place if they were in an actual black metal outfit, but to me it sounds like someone’s trying to do karaoke to a bunch of fucking children’s songs. Then the tribal drums come in, and you’re even more confused. It’s not all bad, but it is all boring, to a degree I didn’t think possible – it’s so boring that it hurts.

3/10: Someone turn off the stupid.