Circle II Circle to Release New EP and Album

Former Savatage vocalist Zak Stevens hasn’t exactly been sitting around chilling of late. A new Circle II Circle E.P., the six-track So Many Reasons, will see the light of day on May 20 via Locomotive Records. Thirty-six days later, on June 24, Locomotive will release the fourth all-new CIIC studio album, Delusions Of Grandeur.

The band—Singer/Songwriter Zak Stevens, Bassist Paul Michael Stewart, Guitarist Andy Lee, Guitarist Evan Christopher and drummer Robert T. Drennan—went for a “more edgy, rougher, but no less grand” style than that found on its last album, 2006’s Burden Of Truth. The first single is “So Many Reasons.”

Fans of the band who do not want to wait until June 24 for new CIIC music can content themselves on May 20 with the E.P. So Many Reasons starts with its title track, continues with an edited version of “Every Last Thing,” before hitting its stride with “Darkness Rising,” the album version of “Every Last Thing” and a video for “Evermore.”

Stevens joined Savatage in the early ‘90s for Edge Of Thorns and contributed mightily to the Florida band’s Dead Winter Dead, Handful Of Rain and The Wake Of Megellan albums. Shortly before the Poets & Madmen album in 2001, Stevens left under amicable circumstances to form Circle II Circle and spend more time with his family. CIIC’s 2003 Watching In Silence debut featured his Savatage best friend Jon Oliva co-writing most of the material…as he also does here. Are Stevens/Oliva the Jagger/Richards of Heavy Metal? One could make a good argument.