Tim Flannery gets Americosmic on Three Ring Circus

Three-time World Series champion Tim Flannery’s newest album, Three Ring Circus, is his best. His all-star band the Lunatic Fringe, featuring Douglas Pettibone, Dennis Caplinger, and Dean Smith, helps Flannery come into his own on Circus.

Themes such as traveling, success, and failure appear throughout this genre-defying effort recorded In Leucadia with Berkeley Hart’s (and Lunatic) Jeff Berkeley. The record sounds contemporary, so millennials will like this album, not just their parents. Production leaves you feeling like you’re in the studio as 14-songs weave through bluegrass, “punk-folk,” country, celtic, and “Americosmic.”

Circus contains coasts, bays, ganja, rum, fog, trolleys, family, sunny days, dark nights, victory, and surrender. Punk-folk tune “Forgotten Coast” is a West Coast snub of the thumb at Eastern powers. “California Promises” is a bright, optimistic ballad about long-distance love. “Good Enough” is a five-minute psychedelic jam. “Rise Up” fuses classic rock with reggae in an ode to perseverance, living in the moment, family, and friends. Proceeds from the album will be donated to the nonprofit Love Harder Project.

• Album: Three Ring Circus
• Artist: Tim Flannery
• Label: Whalebone Records
• Songs: (1) Another Mansion to Fall (2) Gamblin' (3) Forgotten Coast (4) Compass (5) River Town (6) Time Changes Everything (7) Three Ring Circus (8) California Promises (9) Good Enough (10) Rise Up (11) Cover Me Up (12) The Great Divide (13) San Francisco Love Affair (14) Dare of an Angel