Ataxia is a work of sprawling Aztec menace. The concept here appears to be things that make one lose control (drink, women, compulsion, novocain, police). Please note: Not recommended for wankers.
-Peter Quinnell

SKYSCRAPER
According to Wikipedia, “ataxia” is a “neurological sign and symptom consisting of gross incoordination of muscle movements.” People suffering from ataxia often appear drunk and incoherent, and perhaps that is how best to describe the reaction of anyone coming into contact with Circus Devils’ music uninitiated. Ataxia, the follow-up to 2007’s Sgt. Disco, shows the mutant brainchild of Robert Pollard and Todd Tobias raising that album’s stakes, making things heavier, dancier, and weirder. Circus Devils has settled into an excellent stride, sounding like the soundtracks to Eyes Wide Shut and Hitchcock films somehow took human form as a rock supergroup. Pollard and Tobias have consistently made albums that challenge listeners, but the payoff for anyone who sticks around long enough to “get it” is huge – there are literally thousands of worlds Circus Devils have inhabited since there inception with 2001’s Ringworm Interiors, and the band hasn’t been bound by genre or melody or even dissonance since. The music jumps from dark crawlspace paranoia to sexy swaggering rock to postpunk jerky new wave to ethereal planes of exultation,all within matters of seconds. One moment you’re bobbing your head and the next moment you’re terrified, asking yourself, “What’s going on here? This is scaring me.” And though Circus Devils have always followed whatever crooked and strange or delicately beautiful paths they’ve chosen, their records have gotten consistently more and more intricate, refined, bold, and solid, Ataxia being their most dynamic and strange offering as of yet.
-- Steve Five

The FIRE NOTE
On last years release Sgt. Disco [2007] we found Circus Devils really emerging and becoming its own identity with more of a focus. What happens on ATAXIA is simply called busting out and leaving no doubt that this is a band! Everything is still here that make this a Circus Devils record like the weird noises in "Nets At Every Angle " or the echoing vocals on "I-Razors" but all of the transitions from track to track work together and succeed in making ATAXIA the groups most cohesive and accessible album to date. Don't get me wrong - there are no soaring choruses or harmonies filling the air but even though the song structures are chopped up - they are chopped up with precision almost like Bob, Todd and Tim are true surgeons of noise. ATAXIA is also filled with heavy riffs, guitars and drums that are set as the backdrop to Pollard's vocals that each create an edge, swagger and fever that has never been around with the Circus Devils before. This is a good thing that gives ATAXIA a bigger rock feel instead of another experiment. ATAXIA also brings back the tradition of releasing the album on Halloween (10/31/08) like the groups first three records so get ready to turn your volume up and don't worry about asking yourself if you are ready for a trick or treat because you are going to get both!
--Sam DaMatta

BLURT
Psychedelic in the best sense of the word, Ataxia, the latest manifestation of the minds of Robert Pollard and cohorts Todd and Tim Tobias, is their most condensed yet stylistically comprehensive collection, ranging from the primal, rhythmic urges of "Get Me Extra" to the sublime harp of the title track. Released on Halloween, it's the perfect accompaniment to whatever goes bump in your night.
-- Brian Staker

The London Sunday Times
The determinedly annoying Circus Devils' sixth album finds Robert Pollard sounding like a peyote-visionary lumberjack who has wandered into a rehearsal by a 1970s progressive-rock band, then edited the giant jams down into exhilarating two-minute slivers. Ataxia is Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans remade in miniature from pottery fragments and human toenail clippings.
-- Stewart Lee

SUBBA-CULTHA
Wow! What a head fuck! Forget playing Judas Priest’s records backwards, this is the work of the devil, right here. Satan’s music. A fetid mixture of compass spinning soundscapes, cut’n’paste gothic literature, progressive, psych-rock and Kenny Rogers. More claustrophobic and disorienting than The Who’s rock opera, Tommy: this is vertiginous and edgy, creepy and twisted, like subliminal messages being played over dodgy avant-garde prog. It has a terrible nightmarish quality to it that could perfectly accompany a film of some of David Lynch’s more ‘outthere’ ideas, as yet not committed to celluloid(!) I’m going to shoot it with silver bullets, douse it with holy water and quarter, burn and bury it far from lay-lines and churchyards. *Shudders*
--J Capeling

STRANGEGLUE
Ataxia, Circus Devils' new full length has a queasy, bad trip feel snaking through its seventeen short and bumpy songs. I get the impression that their fans are probably quite a gnarled clan, one I wasn’t born to. The whole listen is one frustrating attempt to either validate the music on cerebral level, find the tacky antics funny, or respect the innovative production (which is the easiest of the three). But when it comes down to it the songs just aren’t very good.

The key to Circus Devils and me not getting on all that well might be down to attention span. They kill everything off too quick. I feel like some of the more twisted elements could also get interesting if they were given a little more airtime. I’ve had just enough of listening to this album. So before this review winds up done like this yo-yo of an album just has, I should point out two or three things:
1: I don’t know any of the other Circus Devils material.
2: I like the song ‘Mayflower Brought Disease”. It can stomp about my head anytime.
3: ‘Stars, Stripes and Crack Pipes’ is pretty good fun too.
-- David Morris

It is difficult to describe Ataxia in a way that would adequately communicate what to expect from it, although that might be considered a good thing. These seventeen songs seem to tell a story, even if considerations like plot and characters aren't present. The nature of the story is unclear, but its twists and turns are best experienced with a relatively clean slate.

KFJC (Los Altos Hills California, USA)
What is the opposite of air-brushed? Does it have keyboards dredged up from some dungeon? Traces of Eraserhead dance in the sourplum dreams of Robert Pollard and a pair of Tobiases. The second side of Ataxia in all its dismal, descending organs, and lunatic style really comes across as a dark masterpiece for me. Pollard’s pipes, even when cloaked in wolf howl and analog blitz are commanding. His lyrics captivate and yet elude. They get highlit by pink lasers of synth. File this with your Residents’ records, or maybe even next to Scott Walker’s “Tilt” skipping past the buzz rock numbers here, which don’t really belong on a dance floor when the title is Ataxia? Although the GbV faithful may clamor for them (”Backwash Television”, “The Girls Will Make It Happen” and the attached-like-a-tail “Rat Face Ballerina”). But damn, that second side shines dark in decline! The Glum Lie Down on Broadway?
-- Thurston Slipperman

The Luna Kafe
Circus Devil's 6th album, Ataxia, is not something for fragile souls. It is a gentle reminder that sounds can give you a very unpleasant feeling. Ataxia provides creepy images and disturbing sci-fi soundscapes . . . a darkness I'm not sure I want to visit. This is the kind of music that makes me afraid of walking in the woods alone at night.

But still I keep listening. To the noise, the manic punk guitar, the stoner grooves, the almost grunge-like calmness on "He Had All Day". The repetitive rhythm of "I Razor", "Star, Stripes and Crack Pipes" and "Get me Extra!". Which,if you strip away all the noise, actually are pretty good rock songs. But then again, you can't strip away the noise that is the core of everything on this record. And I find that just being scared for a little while can be fine. But just for a little while ...
-- Aslaug Klausen

PopMatters
Circus Devils are perhaps the most earnest experimentation in Pollard’s large stable of projects. Most are slight twists on his basic talent for pop songs. But the Devils are dirtier and odder than any of his other bands, and genuinely twist his hooks into something spacey and strange. And over six albums, they’ve made some small strides forward. Their early attempts at bizarro rock were nearly unlistenable. But with last year’s Sgt. Disco and now with Ataxia, they’ve moved away from sounds that are annoying and broken to ones that are, at least sometimes, charmingly oddball.

Unfortunately, those moments get dragged down by the second half of the record. This part of Ataxia is comprised almost entirely of spacey sound experiments that trudge along at a snail’s pace. Pollard’s vocals get more histrionic at moments, like on “I Found the Black Mind”, and the songs reveal irreparable holes the more they stretch out. Even the up-tempo “Get Me Extra!” sounds flat between those other tracks, and Pollard’s salesman shout is bright without being enthusiastic, sounding more fatigued than energized.

A few of these songs do come close to Pollard's solid solo output—but it is also mired in the trouble with the band’s sound. They might sound a little weirder, and more palatable in their weirdness, if they didn’t insist on being weird. The few highlights aside, most of Ataxia forces its strangeness on you, and ends up sounding pretty bland for it.