The Circle and the Blue Door

Biography

While her previous band, Ipso Facto, always had a sense of drama about them, Rosalie Cunningham moved into an even more theatrical direction with the formation of Purson. Exploring the world of proto-metal, the band weaves together influences like Cream, Deep Purple, and Jethro Tull into a quasi-mystical pastiche of psychedelic wonder made up of fuzzed-out guitars and Wurlitzer organs. Purson's full-length debut, The Circle and the Blue Door, arrived on Metal Blade in 2013. Imbued with a sense...

While her previous band, Ipso Facto, always had a sense of drama about them, Rosalie Cunningham moved into an even more theatrical direction with the formation of Purson. Exploring the world of proto-metal, the band weaves together influences like Cream, Deep Purple, and Jethro Tull into a quasi-mystical pastiche of psychedelic wonder made up of fuzzed-out guitars and Wurlitzer organs. Purson's full-length debut, The Circle and the Blue Door, arrived on Metal Blade in 2013. Imbued with a sense of mystical darkness, Purson conduct a psychedelic exploration of proto-metal with their first album, The Circle and the Blue Door. On her first album since the split of her last band, Ipso Facto, Rosalie Cunningham continues to bring a certain flair for the melodramatic to her songwriting that isn't quite goth, but definitely has a theatrical feeling about it. Given the over the top nature of the music, which combines some of the best parts of bands like Deep Purple, Cream, and Jethro Tull, her ability to throw herself whole-heartedly into a song isn't just welcome, it's essential. No matter how well you nail the right blend of swirling Wurlitzer organs and bluesy guitar riffs, it's total commitment that that can make or break a song like "Sapphire Ward." Fortunately, Cunningham and company deliver a performance that's more than capable of controlling the sorts of musical black magic that The Circle and the Blue Door is attempting to conjure. Though other bands are out there digging into the DNA of heavy metal, few of them deliver an experience as immersing as Purson, who still try to capture that Zeppelinesque sense of mystery in an era where the whole of human knowledge is just a click away. However, if you can disconnect for a minute and throw yourself into taking in the music in the same way the band has thrown itself into creating it, The Circle and the Blue Door won't disappoint. The Circle And The Blue Door finds the missing link between Pentangle and Pentagram, by way of David Bowie’s dream reality and The Beatles’ feel for the perfect melody. And while it owes a debt to front woman Rosie Cunningham’s clear love of the late 60s and the early 70s, it is her poetic, evocative lyricism, tight song craft, sonorous vocal style and dedication to deep musicality that takes this wonderful album far beyond the waters of pastiche. Only an original mind could come up with a line like “ex dwellers of Spiderwood Farm, though they live here, they mean you no harm” — and set it against a mellotron solo. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.