Course of Ruin - Circle of Dust

Circle of Dust was formed by New York based Scott "Klayton" Albert after his former thrash metal outfit "Immortal" disbanded. Albert recorded and produced most of the Circle of Dust material himself. For the touring line up, the band was joined by lead guitarist Daren ”Klank” Diolosa and Scott's brother Dan ”Leveler” Albert (lvl) and Jason Tilton. The band was signed to R.E.X. Records, which released the band's first album Circle of Dust in 1992. The album combined metal and dance music. Albert rerecorded the album in 1995. The second album, was originally released as a side project entitled Brainchild with the album title Mindwarp, but was soon reissued under the Circle of Dust banner as Brainchild. The record was more extreme than first one, and showcased dark cyberpunk-esque lyrics. The album is characterized by strong elements of thrash metal. A music video was shot for ”Telltale Crime” in Tennessee state penitentiary which was closed due to inhuman conditions. The album was exclusively distributed to secular market, where the band achieved moderate success: Part of the song ”Deviate” was used as the introsong for a long time in the now defunct MTV Sports show.

Albert led the Christian industrial metal movement at one point and he was a part of many other groups such as Argyle Park, the underground supergroup of industrial metal, which released the successful album Misguided (1995). Albert produced the sideproject of The Crucified members, Chatterbox's only album Despite. After a some disagreements with the label occurred, the touring line up of Circle of Dust disbanded. Daren Diolosa started a soloproject under the name Klank and recorded the album Still Suffering in 1997. The second album Numb was somewhat successful because the song ”Blind” became a hit single. Dan Albert recorded under the name Level. Scott Albert grew tired of R.E.X. Records' policy and the critique that he did not write Christian lyrics enough, and eventually left the Christian scene. In 1998 Scott Albert recorded the "last" Circle of Dust album Disengage which incorporated elements of darkwave and synthpop.

The liner notes to Disengage contained bits and pieces of an interview he had done, in which he explained that he had chosen to disband Circle of Dust and start anew with a later project called Angeldust (which also featured Criss Angel), as well as various photographs hinting at feeling rejected by churches. Angeldust were short-lived however and in 2001 Klay had begun work on a new project, which remains his current musical outlet, Celldweller.
Since the breakup of Circle of Dust, there have been several re-releases of CoD albums. In 2005, Retroactive Records re-released the original self-titled Circle of Dust album, Brainchild's Mindwarp, Argyle Park's Misguided, and Metamorphosis (remixes of Circle of Dust, Brainchild, and Living Sacrifice). After Klayton bought back the rights to all of his albums, 2016 saw the re-release of all four CoD albums and the Argyle Park album with lots of previously unreleased bonus material and a few all-new tracks. A new album is set to be released in late 2016. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.