For those unaware, Seasons is an old album. With their 1997 debut, the German band Flying Circus from Grevenbroich (somewhere between Dusseldorf and Cologne) immediately became an insider tip for all lovers of classic rock music between hard rock and progressive rock.

Enthusiastic reviews flooded in from all corners of the world, and that hasn’t changed with the seven additional releases that the band now has under their belt.

The excellent reviews and the status of Flying Circus as a band to be reckoned with was soaring now and then, last year, the band’s Best Of album suddenly found itself as #14 in the German album charts for metal and rock and stayed on the hit list for a whopping 10 weeks.

Since then, the band has received significantly more media attention, and so Michael Dorp (vocals), Michael Rick (guitar), Rüdiger Blömer (keyboards and violin), Roger Weitz (bass) and Ande Roderigo (drums) decided to rewind the band’s history for all newcomers to the band and completely re-record the 12 original tracks contained on Seasons for the album’s anniversary 25 years after its release.

And in the process, the band took all liberties. Instead of just adapting the song arrangements to the current Flying Circus line-up and instrumentation, the five musicians treated the initial tracks as if they were new musical ideas that still had to be fully developed.

Some songs are now in a different key and/or have new parts added and others left out, most of the pieces were tightened up or even (in the case of the ballad Follow the Empress) saw the singer changed (drummer Ade Roderigo instead of main singer Michael Dorp).

Seasons 25 Version:
1. The Jewel City
2. Footprints In The Sand
3. In All Ways And Always
4. Follow the Empress
5. Seasons (Acoustic Version)
6. Antigone’s Lament and Triumph
7. Let It Be Gone
8. Interior Monologue
9. Evening Solace
10. Supersonic Man
11. Never Again
12. The Jewel City (Reprise)

Named after the Monty Python’s television series, this intensely rousing, updated and remodeled recording opens on the drum-led rock of The Jewel City and the the brilliant Hammond Vs. Guitar blues rock of Footprints In The Sand is brought forth, and they are followed by the veritably acoustic, Renaissance-imbibed In All Ways And Always, the mid-tempo balladry of Follow the Empress, an acoustic rendition of the titular Seasons, and then we get presented the brilliant, soaring one minute, low ebbed roll the next, guitar opus Antigone’s Lament and Triumph.

Up next is the funky rocking blues of Let It Be Gone and the sturdy AOR of Interior Monologue which are in turn backed by the shimmering, balladeer qualities within the lush instrumental Evening Solace, and then we get the incredible Hammond organ solo that then feeds us seamlessly into the quiet AOR of Supersonic Man, the album rounding out on the pulsating 10 minute opus Never Again, coming to a close on a reprise of The Jewel City.

The result of this exciting experiment (which also features the aforementioned 12 Remastered tracks directly after the 25th Anniversary versions) presents the five musicians audibly matured and each individual as a virtuoso in his respective profession, while all the 12 pieces sound incredibly fresh.

Not only because of the powerful, contemporary production, but above all because of the band’s infectious joy of playing that makes one thing utterly clear: Seasons 25 is a NEW album.

The separately available, elegant digipack of the new recording alone demonstrates this in a more than impressive way, but in addition a double CD pack adds in a remaster of the original recordings from 1997 as a bonus disc and thus gives everyone the possibility of a direct compassion between yesterday and today.

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