Stomping Grounds

Stomping Grounds, the 2015 album from Ohio-based Circus Devils, blasts off with a full side of brash, catchy rock `n' roll featuring the vocal bravado of Robert Pollard at full tilt. The album's flipside takes a detour into more psychedelic territory, offering a mixture of weird and pretty vignettes. Themes include the wasteland of regimented work-ruled living, sexually active geezers, lost girls, sick doctors and impressionistic recollections of the stomping grounds of boyhood. The album closes with the standout track `Sunflower Wildman (Remember Him?)', an anthemic, prog-rock story song about a shut-in with dementia who chases boys away from his sunflower-choked yard. Stomping Grounds is high listening adventure, and probably more exciting than 90% of the movies you will see this year.