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Once again, Palm Desert, Calif., quartet Kyuss has released a gigantically satisfying sludgefest that’s almost too good for words. Like the previous (and similarly amazing) Blues for the Red Sun and Sky Valley, …And the Circus Leaves Town combines the sun-baked riffs of guitarist Josh Homme with the grandly muffled production of Masters of Reality frontman Chris Goss. The result is a hypnotic snarl that twists from the piercing wah-wah guitars of “Jumbo Blimp Jumbo” to the speaker-cone-threatening grind of “Spaceship Landing.” The undulating thump is utterly gratifying, but Kyuss also improves on its stomping formula with a number of equally mesmerizing, quieter moments: The opening of “Phototropic” accents the spry work of bassist Scott Reeder, while “Catamaran” is blissfully languid. Circus, like Valley, is marred by a moronic hidden-track stunt—in this case, one of the album’s best tunes is marooned more than 20 minutes beyond the final listed track—but since this Kyuss disc is the best album I’ve heard since, well, the last Kyuss disc, all is enthusiastically forgiven.