The recordings featured here were originally a Mark Shelton solo project known by few as 'The circum maximus' in the early 90's, but just before releasing the album on their label Black Dragon as their debut self-entitled The Circus Maximus the record label decided to change the name back to Manilla Road, in an attempt to increase popularity. After releasing the album in 1992 the band broke up, until being revived in 2001 with their original epic sound. So? What can someone expect from Circus Maximus? Well the best comparison one can think of is Saxons' mid-career albums, with a trace of progressive rock, ambience and glam, yes... even glam rock.... by this most if not all the tracks have a trace of glam and a kind of hard rocking style. The idea works very well. The Circus Maximus is a nice listen, very experimental, unique and avente-guard, although the idea of glam to metalheads may be looked down upon, it is not the same with this record! Manilla Road keeps their heavy metal talent with them. Elements of funk, death and doom can also be heard throughout this album, so as you can tell a hell of a lot of styles can be heard on this album, to make it very different and kind of unique. Although this is not their epic style the mix of ambience and different styles of rock/metal work brilliantly together. Overall "The Circus Maximus" is a brilliant listen, and you will understand Manilla Road have talent playing in more areas then their usual epic style.