Circa Waves – Death & Love Pt. 2 Review 

Circa Waves have much to make up for with Death & Love Pt. 2. Their first part, which was released earlier this year, was a musing on near-death experiences and an appreciation for life. Inspiring moments which produced some of the most numbing, middle-of-the-road music you can find. Modern indie-adjacent guitar rock music is in a rut, not because there is a lack of it; the inverse is true. When every artist promises to be the harbinger of the genre, it means, really, that they have a singular message to present and the same few notes as their previous release. Such is the case for Death & Love Pt. 2, a direct continuation of the near-death experience which moulded Death & Love Pt. 1. It follows a standard path and provides neither emotional context for those life-changing moments or instrumental changes challenging the genre and its shortcomings. When you have an artist who can cut through the noise and speak truth into your very soul, that’s a winner. Circa Waves only adds to that noise.  

Nine more songs to follow on from the first part. They either had feared a double album in 2025 would land as gracefully as a crate of fruit attached to a concrete parachute or had a do-over prepared in case the first batch of songs went down horribly. Either way, extremely tame and inoffensive music comes through. Trivial additions at best. What few interesting instrumentals there are on Death & Love Pt. 2 are small change for the underwhelming lyrical choices. Sole standout, Lost in the Fire, is a reminder of what the band were once capable of, but even then, it’s well off the sweet spot of satisfying music and songs which make you think. Fleeting songs, those light numbers which would often fail to connect or even capture the spirit of the times, let alone the message which has affected the band enough to write and record this way. It sounds loose, bereft of ideas.  

What a shame to hear it head that way, too, especially as it’s a step up from the drivel of Never Going Under. Circa Waves has been around long enough to know they need to do more than this but, for whatever reason, never do. Stick Around has the ups and downs of life presented not with specifics but with rhyming that even the earliest rock and roll groups would have avoided, for they’re just too obvious. Cherry Bomb hits out at the rich kids who are “at it again”, but when they’re the ones making music of interest, it’s hard to figure which is the right side. If this is what a near-death experience inspires, then it’ll be a nightmare when the lighter side of life is reflected on. Circa Waves continues to play up to a stale image, for if they focus on the music, they may find themselves well behind the times.  

You can stick Death & Love on and never quite know when a new song starts, when an old idea ends. It all mixes together, mulch for the musically uninterested. Grey paste for those who need more indie rock songs to sway to, but never quite connect with. Frustratingly enough, there are moments of promise to be heard in this second part, the selection of songs arguably stronger thanks to a few moments which come close to being highlights. They’re just not good enough to be anything highlight worthy, but at least things are happening on Old Balloons. Life is cruel and it keeps coming, that’s the lesson to be learnt elsewhere. But a song like Sweet Simple Thing suggests Circa Waves have paid their dues. Far from it. They lack the spirit needed to push on and conceptualise the deeper world around them. It shows in this plainsailing continuation of Death & Love, a flat album.