CD - Mars Attacks - Circle Of Love

You might think, from the classy artwork, that this is a re-issue of a late fifties jazz album, but no. This is the new Mars Attacks CD. A beautiful cardboard cover with an 8-page booklet inside, containing the lyrics of all 14 songs, 10 of which are selfpenned originals. The remaining 4 tracks are covers of Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Ed Bruce.

Mars Attacks are very experienced musicians, who already earned a full five stars for their 2004 album "Dirty Tricks" (Armadillo Records). So, let's see what the boys have been up to this time. The album hits off with jungle drums and elephants, the title song "Circle of Love" is a rockabilly mix of Hank Mizell and Sonny Burgess. Jungle rhythms and trumpets do have that effect. Great song, greasy guitar licks.

"I'm Gonna Get Ya" carries on in a more traditional rockabilly tempo, and "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" speeds things up even more. Nice build up. Gene Vincent's touchy love song "In My Dreams" (written by Bernice Bedwell, who also wrote Lotta Lovin' for Gene) sounds pretty neat, but the sensitive voice of Gene can hardly be copied, so I'd rather hear the original.

Next are a series of brand new songs, all written by Martin Telfser, in various rhythms and tempos. Martin is a superb songwriter and a pretty good rockabilly string picker. "Leavin' It All Behind" stands out of the rest, because the band uses a trumpet again, Sonny Burgess style. Charlie Rich's original piano rocker "Rebound" is rearranged to a fast paced rockabilly bopper, real cewl. "She's Gone" is the only original written by singer Roland Riedberger, and it's a great rocking song. Maybe Roland should write some stuff like this.

Ed Bruce's "King Of Fools" a treasure from the Sun vaults, is as simple as ingenious. A beautiful example of the original Sun sound from the fifties. "I Just Feel So Sad" is another rockabilly track by Martin Telfser, and a great closer for a great album. The album has kind of a theme around the Circle of Love, from finding a girl, then being happy as can be, the trouble in paradise, and getting a bit pissed off, the break up and feeling lonely and blue again.

Another song by the Mars Attacks "High School Ceasar" (a Reggie Perkins song) was recently released on the first Blue Lake records sampler titled "The Lake Rocks" (BLR-CD 06) along with 24 other great rocking tracks of which only a few have been issued before on some rare records. Confirmed bands appear on this compilation alongside lesser known acts, all wrapped in a color picture booklet to show you how the Lake rocks

Mars Attacks are:
Roland Riedberger - Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Trumpet Martin Telfser - Lead Guitar David Karlinger - Drums Oliver Pfanner - Double Bass, Backing Vocals