russian circles - enter

.:: Chicago seems to be a sort of hot bed for instrumental acts now-a-days... Russian Circles sound is much less pretentious then many of the other instrumental bands... with songs never getting tedious or tiring.

Enter is a record over which the post-rock (now, i'm hating this word: "post-rock". I guess i'll never use it again in this blog !!!) pioneers will drool, but fans of more traditional heavy rock bands will also find their appetites whetted by a selection of truly phenomenal riffs. For every crystalline chime there’s a cymbal crash to awaken the dead; for every plucked string there’s a fret-shredding monster chord sequence to rival anything today’s metal royalty can muster. It is, in short, a wonderfully balanced album, full of surprises and satisfying climaxes, albeit one that may have benefited from better sequencing.


.:: Russian Circles have it. That's really what it all boils down to in the end, after all the promotion, the interviews, the advertisements, the one-sheets, the haranguing from publicists: Does this band have it -- that impossible-to-define something that you can't explain, but instantly recognize? It's what makes a band indelibly memorable and sends people scurrying to the merch table after their set.

Up until recently, Russian Circles didn't have much to sell those people besides a self-released four-song demo. That's because the band only formed in late 2004, after the break-up of Dakota/Dakota, the math-rock band in which guitarist Mike Sullivan and bassist Colin DeKuiper played. When drummer Dave Turncrantz moved to Chicago after he quit his old band, Riddle Of Steel, Russian Circles cohered into something formidable.

Instrumental bands have to compensate for the presence a vocalist would bring, but with Russian Circles, vocals seem extraneous. Who needs some dude's caterwauling when you have Sullivan's richly textured playing? It's got enough technical flair to make guitarists in the audience reconsider taking lessons, but it flows naturally, never resorting to wanky theatrics. DeKuiper's thick, growling bass lines provide the punch in the low end. Drummer Turncrantz's propulsive, polyrhythmic beats make him the "Jesse's Girl" of the indie scene, leaving band dudes everywhere wondering, "Where can I find a drummer like that?" -- flameshovel.com


download: russian circles - enter

pass: indie-ground.blogspot.com