Beauty and bruises don’t usually go hand-in-hand, but it does for Russian Circles. Their instrumentals are heavy, but the band has soothing passages along the way. This has been the bands formula that sets it apart from all the run-of-the-mill post-rock that inhibits independent music. Darkness and light flow in and out as a complete, non-stop passage.
“Schiphol,” off new album Empros, appears with some acoustic picking while slight guitar feedback comes in and out like passing cars. This comes just after Russian Circles was in full attack mode for the ending of "Mládek," relentlessly pounding away for 30 seconds. Empros is the band’s fourth full-length, taking everything its learned to this point and applying it here. Empros is an adventure through sound; walls torn down and then rebuilt.
Disliking Russian Circles is practically impossible. Some moments of Empros will inflect paralysis, but this isn’t new territory for the band. Station, their second album for Suicide Squeeze, is where the Circles started to tighten up after the manic melodic psychosis of Enter, the bands first LP. Empros, for Sargent House –– it still stuns, but the atmosphere seems different. It’s a new recording technique that makes the band sound like its playing in a huge factory space. Empros starts with “309,” lurching out into a full stampede. Eventually, bassist Brian Cook (formerly of These Arms Are Snakes and Botch) slides up and down his bass neck, creating treble that could make a building collapse. Russian Circles would be a fine metal band in its own right, but they like to explore and experiment. Cook mentioned in an interview with Decibel that he’d never construct an album “from the ground up” again, like Russian Circles did for Empros. The work may have been hard for Cook, guitarist Mike Sullivan, and drummer Dave Turncrantz, but that may be why the output is so precise and listenable.
While the Circles’ music is complex, it’s also confident. The band has built off the grandiose strings of third album Geneva, bringing in even more strings for Empros. It’s the layering of guitars that creates a looming sense of atmosphere. Out of left field drum parts from Turncrantz, overwhelming bass rumbles from Cook, and even more layering of guitars fill space. There’s some serious concentration here.
Heavier, and just plain more bizarre than any prior record, Empros reaches alien structures of progressive rock. The band is floored for 35 minutes, until the album closes with “Praise By Man,” which has some vocals by Cook. Vocals on a Russian Circles album are few and far between, but “Praise” works gorgeously. Failure is not an option. After all that pummel and obscurity, “Praise” leaves a lasting sense of hope.
