Skrat’s ‘Circus Act’ Is An Explosive Return to Form

True to their DIY ethos, Chennai rock trio Skrat recorded their new five-track album Circus Act fully live with mics, no metronome and no layers. 

Released on Jan. 18, 2025, it comes on the back of plenty of big stages for Skrat since they picked back up after the pandemic lull. That includes everything from the inaugural edition of Bandland festival in Bengaluru in 2023 to Lollapalooza India in early 2024, followed by a raucous set at Mahindra Independence Rock in Mumbai later that year. Vocalist-guitarist Sriram T.T., bassist Jhanu Chanthar and drummer Tapass Naresh continue to keep the rock flag flying high, especially on their terms. 

Thematically, Circus Act tells the story of a character named Slingscot, described as a “highly skilled circus performer, who along with her circus crew engage in covert missions to offset the financial woes of the Circus.” A press release adds, “One of their missions ends with her being framed for the murder of their ringmaster. Eventually she is recruited by the very agent who imprisoned her to investigate and neutralize another worldly threat, simply known as the ‘Emergence’. On this mission, truths are overturned and her reality is questioned when she is captured by ‘Raptor’, commander of the armies of the fabled ‘General Bison’. The mystery of the ‘Emergence’ is finally revealed and she switches sides… forever. It is written that these events eventually lead to the ‘Great Bison Wars.’” 

If that’s not pretty much a deep dive into everything Skrat are about in terms of conceptual storytelling heard on albums like The Queen, the raw, adrenaline-fueled approach to Circus Act cements it further. The album opens with the fast-paced, flittering “Flashbang” complete with screams and growls from Sriram and a reference to The Queen. The track dedicated to the character “Slingscot” starts out wistful and picks up tempo soon enough, wiry riffs break out over dancey rhythms. 

The album’s title track “Circus Act” continues into a swinging groove that intends to recall a circus. Skrat’s wavy guitar melodies are at the core of the song that clocks in at nearly six minutes, journeying into their typically frenzied rhythms. If that wasn’t enough of a saga, there’s the eight-minute “Radicade” that sounds off loud and dissonant and doesn’t really let up in energy, reveling in Skrat’s metal-edged influences right up to the five-and-a-half-minute mark. It closes with Sriram’s whistle solo to change up the pace. The EP closes with “X Human,” steeped in Sci-Fi and more molten riffs to pump fists to, before assuming a totally funky end. 

The fifth collection of songs, Circus Act comes just over seven years after Skrat’s previous album, Bison in 2017. Plus, it’s already been a decade since the release of their breakout albums Bring Out the Big Guns (2013) and The Queen (2014). This time around, the trio recorded with audio engineers Rahul Ramachandran and Sathyanarayanan B (who also worked on the mix), with mastering taken over by Los Angeles-based Maor Appelbaum (whose credits include releases by rock heavyweights like Faith No More, Meatloaf, prog bands Yes and Dream Theater and more. The ominous red artwork is created by visual artists Mihir Ranganathan and Charan Balakrishnan.