There are times, when you have to reign yourself in, take yourself in hand (not like that), look yourself in the mirror and gaze deeply upon the very essence of your being, your soul, the very fibre that holds your metaphysical self together, the veritable anchors, guy ropes and hooks, that bind you to this mortal coil and make a promise to yourself, that you’ll leave Mr. Hyperbole and his friends Ms. Gushing, Mr. OverTheTop and Mrs. Effusive, at home for this particular party and only have the one drink before you leave the party and get home in time for Newsnight. Long winded way of saying, I do tend to go in for the full monty, when it comes to certain bands that have shaped my musical worldview. As in previous reviews of Russian Circles, I have, I feel, maybe been on the wrong side of bias being as they are, a band that have gatewayed so many glorious bands for me in the last 10 years or so. But here we are, a new album from Russian Circles, is ready to be birthed unto the world, and so what to make of it?
Well of course this is going to be tough to be critical, because as a band Brain Cook (the soon to be returning Botch possibly), Mike Sullivan and Dave Turncrantz, contrive to make an unholy and infernal noise, that builds it’s musicality in layer upon layer of gossamer thin coatings of delicate guitars and shimmering bass lines with authoritative, spindly and demonstrative drums until you’re lost in their world, suffocated, chocked and lullabied to an eternal bliss. I have made myself a promise as detailed above to try and remain detached and objective, but such is the dense and intricate nature of the music on offer here, it’s difficult to find alternative ways to say sublime, superlative and magical. Russian Circles just do what they do and that’s to create shimmering tower blocks of noise that sway, rotate and oscillate whilst smashing your teeth down your throat and simultaneously rubbing the small of your back, telling you that everything is OK.
In terms of musical progression from previous efforts, Russian Circles, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. They know what they are good at and don’t deviate too far from the path well-trodden. Everything (in theory) on this new album Gnosis is instantly recognisable from their previous oeuvre but turned up to eleven and woven in denser, heavier riffs and passages of music that complement the lush soundscapes and sonically crafted bedrock that it all sits on. Tempo wise it remains at a constant laid back, meandering stroll through the gardens of melancholy. But this is definitely Russian Circles at their steeliest, the guitars seem to have more of a bite and an edge. Sullivan is baring his teeth as the bass and drums contrive to bring the whole thing to a shuddering climax that can snap spines and suck your eyeballs from their sockets. But here lies the genius of this three-piece, is that it judiciously uses these heavier moments to punctuate and highlight the gloriously subdued before darting off into another cul-de-sac before spitting venom into your mouth. It’s in these chugging, dark and dank guitar shredding segues where the monsters live, it’s life affirming and not only raises the hairs on the back of my neck, but takes said hairs and arranges them in a Dutch plait, non more so than on ‘Vlastimil’ which crams so much into its six minute and forty-four running time, it starts as one thing and ends up in a completely different form.
This is a band on top form, taking everything that makes them essential, and adding thirty percent on top, everything is darker, louder, lighter, heavier, creamier, denser, and poignant. After six or seven listens, there are, as with all great bodies of work, nuances, and refrains and passages of music that reveal themselves to the listener, before diving back down the rabbit hole, there awaiting you to rediscover them, or forever disappearing, whilst being led a merry dance by El-ahrairah (it’s a continuation of a tenuous reference to rabbits and Watership Down, pretention be dammed). If you are looking for a stick with which to beat Russian Circles, you’re going to come up short, because being such a trail blazing band, they are predictably mired in quality, stuck in genius and steeped in the spectacular. This is a band operating at a level that will make most bands weep, and whilst naysayers could say that they are simply repackaging much of what they have done before in terms of style, genre, and composition, they are missing the point. This is a band that have struck a rich vein of music form that they have mined, refined, polished, cut and set over their musical career to finally culminate in what can be best described as a bright, shiny diamond of an album.
(9.5/10 Nick Griffiths)
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