Album review : ATOMIC ROOSTER – Circle The Sun

Cherry Red/Esoteric [Release date 10.10.25]

40 years between albums is pushing it a bit.

But for Atomic Rooster, that’s where we are.

The band’s last album, Headline News, was their seventh, released in 1983. Two generations ago, give or take.

Original members Nick Graham quit the band soon after the 1970 debut, and Carl Palmer left to play a leading role with ELP. Talented guitarist, Steve Bolton was subsequently recruited to fly the flag, carry the sword etc etc.

The in through the out door and vice versa shenanigans of the band’s membership fills a Wiki page. Band founder, Vincent Crane seemed to be in perpetual recruitment mode, with Bernie Torme and David Gilmour contributing guitars to that “final” album.

Suffice to say that Bolton provided the anchor for the reformed band in 2016, with Adrian Gautrey (k/v), Shug Millidge (b) and Paul Everett (d) providing all the heavy lifting he needed.

With Circle The Sun, the foursome accurately recreate the original band’s raw, unvarnished and occasionally psychedelic progressive rock.

Openers, ‘Fly Or Die’ and ‘Circle The Sun’ nod their heads to the band’s storied past. The crowded harmonies, the live in the studio soundscape and the powerful, old school Hammond organ all pull us in, cleverly contriving to reach back in time.

There are no art-rock pretensions with yesterday’s or today’s Atomic Rooster, and for that we breathe a huge sigh of relief.

This is bricks and mortar progrock, with not too many moving parts.

Those parts that do are slickly oiled and programmed to create the psychedelic progrock mayhem of ‘Follow Me’, and the droning, thudding, lost in the clouds vocals of the slo-mo ‘Never 2 Lose’.

All 10 tracks are written, separately, by Bolton and Gautrey, and are presented alternately. It’s a smart way of contrasting the down to earth, sometimes confessional lyrics of Bolton with Gautrey’s philosophical musings.

‘Rebel Devil’s pounding, stop chord punctuation is lifted straight out the band’s seventies playbook, and ‘No More’ raises hairs as if 1983 was just yesterday.

Fans of the band will enjoy this musical resurrection. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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