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Circle Takes the Square to Release ‘Pay What You Want’-Priced Album Tonight

circle takes the square, decompositions: volume 1

Fans of apocalyptic punks Circle Takes the Square have waited eight long years for the Georgia group’s proper follow-up to their 2004 debut, As the Roots Undo, and tonight (December 21) the end (to that wait) is here. The post-hardcore four-piece’s second album, Decompositions: Volume 1, will be available digitally at 8 p.m. EST under a “pay what you like” price scheme via Gatepost Recordings. That donation-based pricetag will only last for a limited time, until pre-order packages for the vinyl and CD versions are announced in January, according to the band’s website.

“We appreciate, well beyond words, the support of everyone who has been waiting patiently for this record’s release,” the band wrote. “With this humble offering, we sincerely wish to honor that positive spirit of encouragement you have shrouded us all in. Please come help us sing (and whisper, and scream) a new world into being.”

That tone may be humble, but Decompositions is no modest affair. A press release for the new record identifies the narrative-driven concept album as “evoking labyrinthine soundscapes… an eclectic yet cohesive collage of punk, metal and even indie sounds.” And that’s just the first four songs, which were previously released in 2011 as the Rites of Initiation EP. 

“Rites of Initiation” has since been adopted as the subtitle to Decompositions‘ first chapter, a song-cycle that feeds into the LP’s second half, “Totem Polaris.” The five as-yet-unheard tracks consist of “earthy overtones and esoteric references” that “ensure the band’s commitment to challenging themselves and their fans, with continued experiments inside the beautifully dark universe they’ve manifested.” A perfect soundtrack to the already-delayed Mayan apocalypse. Check out the full track list below.

Decompositions: Volume 1 track list:

Chapter I: Rites of Initiation
1. “Enter by the Narrow Gates”
2. “Spirit Narrative”
3. “Way of Ever-Branching Paths”
4. “The Ancestral Other Side”

Chapter II: Totem Polaris
5. “Prefaced by the Signal Fires”
6. “A Closing Chapter (Scarlet Rising)”
7. “Singing Vengeance Into Being”
8. “Arrowhead as Epilogue”
9. “North Star, Inverted”