Originally Posted by HeartsBreakingEven (Post 941950)

Nice and interesting review. True or not.
I´m not a member of Seb-fc or NonSeb-fc but I liked his LH tour reviews a lot.
German radio station (not BJ fans) says today: good CD, not to expect from a band which already exists for 26 years now, no ballads, no country, many guitar-riffs, many guitar soli, really rocking, reminding to Coldplay. So.....

Originally Posted by liljovi93 (Post 941953)

No, I know you never.

I really hope it isn't anything like Coldplay.

Originally Posted by RockThunder (Post 941999)

I doubt that :p
How can riffs, solo can get together with them ;)
In the worst case it will turn out like the last albums but never like that. Otherwise I would have a proof to call them sell outs and it won't appeal to me anymore.

Originally Posted by Supersonic (Post 940812)

Aloha !

So, my fellow Jovitalkers. I’ve heard the album. And I like it. How did I get it? Well, here’s the story.

This weekend a package was delivered at the house where now 3 of my Polish colleagues live. It was send to that address probably because that’s the only address you can find of me online, and contained a letter.

“Hi Sebastiaan,
I hope this is send to the right address, this is all I could find of you. Here’s a present, I hope you like it. This is for all the work you’ve done on your forum and website. I prefer to stay anonymous because if this leaks it could cost me my job, hence it being on tape instead of CD. You probably understand what I’m thinking now, so go enjoy it. I’ll get to read of what you think of it sooner or later, just promise me you won’t rip it to MP3.
Mr X (sorry couldn’t think of anything better)”

That’s all it said. It was handwritten, and the package contained a cassette tape. I had to reconnect my old cassettedeck to my receiver in order to be able to listen to it. I have got no titles, no liner notes, I’ve only heard the music. At first I thought it was a prank so I’ve called Thierry and let him listen to it. By now several other users on Jovitalk have heard a few songs from it under the condition that they wouldn’t record the call and wouldn’t talk about it. By now I’ve played the tape about 50 times now, because I enjoy it a lot. It’s The Circle, and here’s a review.

1. A rocker in the veign of Hey God meets Tokyo Road or Taking It Back. The song doesn’t have a proper guitar solo but merely some fancy licks here and there and a killer riff. I think they’ll open the shows with this song, it kicks ass and is very uptempo. You can compare it to Sexy Little Thing from Chickenfoot if you want to.
2. We Weren’t Born To Follow. I honestly don’t understand why they released this as the first single because track 1 is so much better. There is a guitar solo though, not a really good one, but a bit like the guitar solo for Have A Nice Day. Nothing special, and most has been said aobut this song.
3. Another rocker, just as fast as the first track, and just as good. The odd thing about this song is that there’s a guitar solo before the first verse, as if the band were jamming before the song actually started. It sort of is like the verses of Last Cigarette without the vocals but with a guitar jam instead. I think I’m hearing 2 guitars but I’m not sure. It could be Richie dubbing his other guitar solo.
4. Another rocker, not a ballad as track 3, but a rock song. It’s not a fast one like the previous two but it’s still faster than songs like Something For The Pain and Say It Isn’t So, for example. This one has the standard verse, verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, chorus structure they tend to do all the time, and the lyrics are a bit odd. It’s a song about Philadelphia I think. It’s not mentioning the city, but talks about building houses and how the boss sang about those streets. Hmmm.
5. The first ballad, and to be honest; it’s wank. It’s worse than All About Loving You, and this sounds like the song they had to put on there, because it doesn’t fit at all. Lame vocals, cheesy lyrics about looking in the eyes and seeing gardens of love. I’m not saying that lyrics like that are wrong per se, but it doesn’t work at all in this song. The guitar solo in the end makes it better though. It’s a bit like Til We Ain’t Strangers but slightly worse. I really think that Bon Jovi should give up writing ballds because they’ve lost their touch when it comes to those songs.
6. A song driven by an acoustic guitar. It starts of on an acoustic guitar (a bit like The Fire Inside) but on the second verse there’s an electric guitar doing improvs, the drums build up and when it hits the chorus the song is on full steam. It rocks, but lacks something, though the tape cuts off the ending of the song, so I've got no idea what I'm missing, and if I'm actually missing anything.
7. Work For The Working Man. Brilliant song. Brilliant, brilliant brilliant. It’s like a steam strain thundering through your speakers. Welcome To The Good Times meets Last Man Standing meets Any Other Day. There’s an immense guitar solo in the middle of the song, followed by some organ solo while the acoustic guitar comes up, and the song then kicks back to “who’s gonna…” This really is the highlight of the album so far, and this will be a stomper live.
8. The obvious Elton John meets Bob Dylan song. This is the song for Jon, it’s piano driven and will be the song that shows up on the first 20 shows, will be used as a pee break by American audiences and will be gone by the time the band starts playing Europe. The song is about findy mercy in someone’s soul or something. It’s not really a bad song, but easily forgotten.
9. Right now the album loses a bit of it’s power. This is an acoustic song in the veign of I Love This Town, Capt. Crash and Who Says. This is the typical Bon Jovi post 2000 stuff. On the bright side, there’s a harmonica solo on it. Not that it’s any good, but that’s all there is really, so I think we can expect Jon to play the harmonica again. And if he plays it on this song, then maybe he’ll start playing it on These Days again as well?
10. A song in the veign of Just Older, Story Of My Life etcetera. This is the song for Jon to slow things down and starting to chat to the audience etcetera. There’s the typical “I’ll sing the chorus very quiet in this part of the song so I can make it intimate” thing, and the guitar solo isn’t anything special.
11. Saving the best for last. This is another one of those songs that rock like a mother****er. This is classic 80s Bon Jovi stuff. This is the song of which no one thought they’d ever write it ever again. It’s Homebound Train / Raise Your Hands like but in drop D, and contains lots of oooh’s and yeaah’s. It’s got a guitar solo that finally shows that Richie still knows how to rip through the songs like he did in the eighties. Lots of tabbing, bends and whatever he could come up with. I swear this is recorded on a Kramer, but who knows?
12. When We Were Beautiful. A filler track. It’s different compared to the leaked version out there, but it’s still not quality. I honestly don’t understand why they put this on the album. The lyrics are bad, and it doesn’t work as a last song.

After listening to the cassette for so many times I tend to believe that the order of songs is wrong because there’s no proper flow at all. Overall this is the best Bon Jovi album of the past 10 years though. It’s got the best of pretty much everything. There’s still some songs on it that shouldn’t have made the record, but you can’t have it all, can you?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Originally Posted by nickolai (Post 1100031)

with all the mixed reviews surrounding the new single and upcoming album i thought i'd delve into the vaults and look at Seb's review of The Circle before it was actually released. I urge you all to read and its a great insight...

EDIT: Ive underlined the first single off The Circle. I'm pretty much with Seb's reviews here and this is an example how the first single released isn't necessarily a portray for the upcoming album...

Originally Posted by crashed (Post 1100032)

You did read this right? it's not and never was a real review.

Originally Posted by nickolai (Post 1100034)

How and why? Seems pretty accurate to me.

Originally Posted by Supersonic (Post 955667)

1. We Weren’t Born To Follow
The first time a lead single didn’t maky any impression whatsoever. Not on the charts, not on the average radio listener and not on the die hards. It’s got 5 guitars in it I think and it obviously steals a part of Born To Be My Baby’s chorus. The lyrics are alright but those yeah, yeah yeah’s are so obviously written in the song to get a crowd going that it’s appalling. I think this is the first time that one of Bon Jovi’s “yeah’s” don’t work. It feels crafted instead of spontaneous or exciting, and it’s one of them typical songs that an American crowd might love. Pumping their fists to the yeah part because it’s really all they recognize about the song. The songtitle might be aimed at people in America who do their own thing despite the crisis and such but it’s just as hypocritical as Michael Jackson releasing a song on natural beauty or Amy Winehouse on sobriety, as there’s one thing Bon Jovi have done the past 10 years and that’s following other people instead of doing their own thing. The guitar solo in the song is odd, as soon as it kicks in you can hear it’s coming from another session, there’s even some hiss in the recording so cheers John Shanks for ****ing that one up. Or was it Obie? When the song ends there’s just Jon doing some “yeah yeah’s and we weren’t boooohooorn to faaaallow” stuff. Why not do some great ad libs instead of just repeating what you’ve sung the previous 3 minutes? 6/10

When We Were Beautiful
2. Now this could be a great song, but the lyrics are shit and I’ve got no idea what the song is about. According to Jon it’s about the crisis and how he thinks back on when America was beautiful, or when the world was beautiful (Jon’s got to aim it at as many people as possible, remember) but I’m not making that up on the lyrics. It makes no sense, the lyrics are shit. The shalalala hey’s make me think of Timon and Pumba making their way through the jungle and this is a song that’s going to tank in a live environment. The guitar solo is alright, but far from being spectacular, it lacks a climax and even I can do better. A reason why the lyrics are shit is because they keep going back to the “live/die, blessed/cursed” stuff which really is a bit silly. It’s like “I’ll put some opposites there, sing it in a weird way and it might sound very deep”. What’s next, am I sober, am I drunk? Your mom has dumps like a truck?” I get the intention of creating something different than the usual Bon Jovi song but it really needs more work. It feels like a demo, or a song they felt was too good to be left off, but it’s too bad to put it on a Bon Jovi album. Why is there no scream after the guitar solo? After the guitar solo it’s more of the same and Jon sings the words so slowly that it really bored me to death. I give it a pass because they tried something different here but that’s it really. 6/10

3. Work For The Working Man
Borrowing the riff from Livin’ On A Prayer “because there was the same situation in the eighties” is shit. Also, wasn’t it better in the eighties, because that’s when they were still beautiful? The vocals in this song are terrible, and this is becoming the first Bon Jovi album on which they couldn’t hide Jon’s shit voice. He puts up a fake rasp, sings thru his nose if he needs to hold a note (meeeyaaahaan, wrkng meeeeyaahn). This is another song that would I be playing in a band I’d rock the **** out of it because it’s got something that could’ve made this a real stomper live. Once again though the lyrics fall back in “live/die” and that guitar “solo” is coming out of nowhere. This is the third song where it doesn’t feel like the guitar solo is part of the song. It’s mixed on top of the rest of the song, and isn’t part of the song at all. When Jon sings “can’t you hear me?” you expect him to actually give you something that makes you hear him, like a scream for example, but instead there’s nothing, so there’s obviously a reason why we can’t hear him. The end of the song is rubbish, “these were my streets” sings Jon, but instead of thinking of the working man he sings about you think about Jon and the entire O2 debacle and how he hasn’t experienced life in the streets he sings about for over 10 years now. This song could’ve been so much, much better. I’ve ripped through this song on my acoustic harder than the band performs this song on the album. Just speeding it up a bit makes it better. And another vocalist, obviously. 7/10

4. Superman Tonight
Right, so this is the song everyone is raving about. I ****ing detest it, can’t stand it. As soon as the chorus kicks in it sounds like the outro of Have A Nice Day. The lyrics save the song a bit and I think this is the first time that lyrics actually save a Bon Jovi song. The vocals are shit (“kììììss”) and I just don’t understand why people like this song. Aerosmith’s Jaded and Girls Of Summer have the same sort of drum pattern with his uneven feeling, but as soon as the chorus kicks in it gets lose. This song doesn’t. You’re waiting for it to go off but it never does. And where is that rubbish guitar solo coming from? Richie’s guitar sound on this album is awful, it’s time he throws away the ESP’s and all the effects he uses and gets back to a clear tone. 4/10

5. Bullet
What a terrible intro this song has. This song deserves a riff like Homebound Train or even One Wild Night has, but no, instead they do some more powerchords and some bass drums, and obviously a talkbox again. It’s like what has become their signature sound ever since It’s My Life has been released. Singing about an SUV is not exactly coming off as a clever lyricist, what’s next, MPV? The vocals are average at best and this song is not going to work in a live environment. The production on the album version is a mess, there’s noise coming from everywhere and if the band intends to play this live they’ll have to include 3 more Bobby’s just to re-capture that wall of sound they have going on in this song. I dislike the guitar solo as well, it’s just following the melody followed by a lick that was used in the guitar solo of Have A Nice Day (and was actually the reason why the guitar solo for HAND was decent). If the guitar solo would’ve been great it’d have been nice to get the organ there but now it doesn’t deliver and never kicks off properly as well due to Jon’s shit vocals. The crowd will drown out Jon during the chorus just by chatting themselves through the song because of it’s low register. Still, the song is alright and it in a way is the 00’s Hey God. Hey God however is miles better though. 7/10

6. Thorn In My Side
This sounds promising, but this sounds exactly like the sort of song Gotthard (popular and very good Swiss rock band) would do. Anyone who listens to Gotthard will probably agree, it’s typicly them. Jon however sounds like he’s having dinner while singing the first 2 verses. It sounds like a second hand Neurotica and is the Complicated of the album. “Kicked around, pushed around” all sung as if he’s taking a crap, again with a fake rasp and sung thru his nose it easily makes it on the list of most terrible vocals on a Bon Jovi song. The rhythm of the song is alright, first proper uptempo song but it’s missing lyrics like songs like Just Older and, yes, even Story Of My Life have. It’s as if they’ve forgotten how to write lyrics that people can remember and sing along to. There’s nothing in this song that’ll make people remember it so they can sing along with the band when it’s played live. The guitar solo is mixed a bit better (That’s a first on this album, so far) but it’s an average guitar solo at best. Jon says that Richie is everywhere on this album, which he really is, but nothing is worth writing home about. 6/10

7. Live Before You Die
Yeah, it’s like opening another box of cliché’s and putting them all in this song. It might be about Richie’s dad and the intention might be good but this song is a snoozefest. It’s the Joey, Wildflower of this album and is Jon the wannabe Bob Dylan writing another storytelling song. If we’re “lucky” this might be the song that Jon’s going to shove down our throats because he can do some acting in the song as well and all that garbage. 4/10

Originally Posted by Supersonic (Post 955669)

8. Brokenpromiseland
Imagine that, imagine that, should’ve done that differently. But this is the first proper song on the album, the one on the band really works and where it finally sounds like they’ve got something to say. If they’re going to do this live it’ll be my favourite of the album I think, which leads me to believe that it’s going to be done 3 times this tour. The best songs are always played the least. What’s also becoming obvious is that all the background vocals are done in a lower register than normally so that it sounds as if Jon’s really pushing himself, but he’s not. The guitar solo once again is coming out of nowhere and it has no proper build up, and it really is shit. But I like this song, but there’s no energy at all, mostly due to Jon’s vocals. 7/10


9. Love’s The Only Rule
This intro is pure garbage, it reminded me of McCartney’s Temporary Secretary which is never, ever a good thing (go youtube it for all I care). It already sounds dated. Apart from that the song is alright but once again a terrible guitar solo. If there’ll ever be an instrumental version leaked of this album I’ll have a blast making my own version with my own guitar solo’s, hell I’d let Iceman guest on it, I’m sure he can do better than what’s on this album as well. As average Jon’s vocals are on this album as average Richie’s doing the guitar solo’s.7/10

10. You lot hate this song but I think it’s a bit better than what’s on the first half of the album. The chorus is obviously rubbish and I didn’t need the shalalala’s because Jon’s going to try to make us sing that stuff, which means it’ll be played live, which means it’s another one of Jon’s live fests. 6/10


11. Another one of those songs with one of those awful drum patterns like in Superman Tonight. This is not going to work live, and yeah, knees, pleas, here we go again. I just noticed that my song by song descriptions are getting shorter and shorter, mostly because I’m losing all excitement listening to this album right now. It just really bores me to death. 4/10

12. Learn To Love.
Whatever. Jon runs for the truth which is clearly true or he’d address some issues many people/fans have with this band. Halle Halle…Berry? If she’d show up there’d be something good but this is the third time I’m listening to the album right now and she’s not here yet so there. 4/10


So there it is, this is how I rate The Circle. It’s not very high and I’m not even sure if it’s my favourite of this decade. It’s a Bon Jovi album, but it doesn’t feel like a Bon Jovi album at all, it never gains momentum, there’s never a moment on the album that makes you think “Yeah, I love this!”, while every single studio album before (apart from TLFR)had one of those moments. There’s Just Older, there’s Bounce, there’s Have A Nice Day, there’s Any Other Day, but there’s no moment on this album that gives me that feeling of making any song an instant success. I heard this album in the train on my way home and expected the waiting to be a real pay off, but it wasn’t anything like that this time. After 3 songs I found myself wondering when there’d finally be a good song I’d love, and having only one other CD with me (the last one from Mark Knopfler) I actually hoped it’d be finished soon so I could give that one another spin. And really, Knopfler isn’t one of the most exciting artists now is he? However, his album breathes. There’s depth in the music, you can hear every instrument, you can feel the songs and even though he’s a very limited vocalist when Knopfler sings you know that he means it. You never get that feeling from Jon’s vocals on this album. He’s never pushed himself and although I am a limited vocalist myself I could sing every song right away without even trying. There’s nothing on this album that excites me, it mostly sounds like demo’s for the Bounce record, an album where they issued some of the things on this album as well. When I gave Have A Nice Day (the song) a 7 it was a solid 7. Where I give the songs on this album a 7 it’s merely because I think a 6 is a little too low. Yes, this album rocks harder than previous efforts, but the rock songs on previous efforts are miles better than any rock songs on this album and I never thought I’d say this but I think that a song like Story Of My Life is better than anything on this album.

Shanks really is responsible for a lot of this. The guy is absolutely clueless and it’s obvious that he doesn’t know how to handle 3 guitars at once, so he makes a complete mess of it. Everything needs to be loud, but it just doesn’t work like that. Had Bon Jovi used a producer like Brendan O Brien (recent AC/DC, Springsteen, Libertad from Velvet Revolver) this album would’ve sounded miles different, but no, sales go before art and they needed a pop producer. Who, as it turns out, is absolutely clueless.

Many songs of the album are also not going to work in a live environment. It’s either way too overproduced so that when it’s played live they’ll find empty holes in the songs that were filled up with guitar sounds on the album, or the vocals are to low that they’ll be drowned out by whatever the audience is doing at the moment a new song is played. The reason why the snippets for the album sounded so great was because they showed a side from Bon Jovi that had rarely been showed lately and you expected the snippets to turn out into something more. It never does though.

Jon also is a big con this album, the vocals are terrible, it’s either thru his nose or thru his ass but the times when he sings with his natural voice can be counted on one hand. A large part of the energy from Bon Jovi songs came from the way Jon delivered. Jon never delivers on this album. Never.
A large part of why fans look up to their idols is because the idols have qualities they themselves don’t have. I don’t feel any of that on this album. I don’t sound like Jon but can deliver a better vocal on most songs and I don’t sound like Richie but can play better guitar solo’s than what Richie does on this album. And I’m not saying that because I think I’m such a great singer or guitar player, but mostly because they deliver below par. I’m sure my review will be ripped apart by newbies for saying this “because fans are not able to be better than their beloved Bon Jovi” but it is what it is. I reckon many idiots will also post the regular "go on listen to [insert band here] then!" to which I'll just reply "Go on, read the raving reviews on backstage, then!".

Normally the bonus tracks for an album often save my final ratings (These Open Arms, Walk Like A Man, Neurotica) but there aren’t any of this at all, so this really will be my final ratings. I thought this album might be a grower but I gave it a few listens and never, ever did I wanted to hear the album another time.

In the past 4 years I’ve discovered many, many other bands, from indie to eighties rock, but what surprised me most is that a lot of indie bands from the past few years have started to rock harder on their albums than this band, who really were the pioneers of the eighties rock genre and one of the bggest rock bands of the nineties based upon 2 albums. This past decade Bon Jovi have released 5 studio albums yet none of them ever gave them that status, so I really get the impression that as a studio act Bon Jovi are pretty much done. Even when they try to be a rock band like on this album they fail compared to many other releases done by other bands. Rock should be fun, rock should be felt, and the album is never fun, hence the reason why my review lacks the humor I normally put in my reviews. And although I get that some of those bands are not in the same genre as Bon Jovi are (Velvet Revolver arerock, Bon Jovi are pop/rock), Bon Jovi do claim to be in that genre, so if you want to be seen as a rock band you’ll be judged as one as well. And when doing that, I can’t give the album more than this;

Rating on the Supersonic’s all mattering Bon Jovi review index:
***** The ****ing bollocks!!!
**** Top album.
*** Yeah, well that was alright...
** Piss poor performance. Nnngg!!!
* Jon you cunt I hope you go bald within 1 day!.

Final rating; 5,7/10

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Originally Posted by nickolai (Post 1100034)

How and why? Seems pretty accurate to me.

Originally Posted by crashed (Post 1100039)

Please don't tell me you actually believe Seb gets his hands on stuff before their released?