On a cold night late in the year, we were able to gather to catch the brief and stunning 10 year anniversary tour of Russian Circles. The Sinclair was packed with excited fans who mobbed the merch tables for custom vinyl and limited-edition shirts. No hats though… maybe next winter my beanie hat fetish will get cured. The venue was indeed full up with fans and there was a lot of excitement in the room for the evening ahead.
Opening things up was the return of Mutoid Man, headed up by Cave In’s Steven Brodsky. Brodsky is a post-rock legend in his own right, and Cave In had just recently took this very stage, opening a similar event for the Doomriders anniversary show, so Brodsky gets a heroes welcome. I realize that in New England we get to see and hear him and his projects more than most, so we are lucky. Meanwhile the band just blazed through most of their début, what sounded like one new song, and killer covers of Dio-era Black Sabbath (with a guest singer, their merch girl, amazing voice and all) and a Marvellettes song (wtf?). The band is killer and you have to marvel at how economical and brutal a drummer Ben Koller (Converge, All Pigs Must Die) is. He was insane on the kit.
Russian Circles is in a select few bands in the post-metal genre really worth spending a lot of time with. Much like the greats of Jazz or Prog rock, repeated listens of Russian Circles lets you discover new bits of songs you never realized existed, every time you hear them. Live, they are even better. They somehow stretch out and expand the depth of the each song they perform while never coloring too far outside the lines. Maybe its the 3000 guitar pedals the band has.
initially I was a little too close to of one of the PA speakers so for the first few songs, I was really focused on the players while my ear drums exploded. From the third song ‘Carpe’ on, I backed up a little in the crowd and really soaked in the sounds. It was as perfect a performance I had seen lately. Dave Turncrantz, Mike Sullivan, and Brian Cook are three players in synchronicity, with no visual cues or barely a passing glance to each other. Just three guys just letting the music flow through them. The crowd was in awe the entire time. After ‘Geneva’, it felt like the show was over for the night. However the players returned several more times to stun the crowd with renditions of ‘Mlàdek’, ‘Death Rides a Horse’ and ‘Youngblood’. Although tonight was night of looking back at their history, one can only imagine what the future holds, as the band prepares a new album for later in 2015.
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Russian Circles Set List:
Deficit
Carpe
309
Harper Lewis
1777
Station
Geneva
Encore:
Mlàdek
Death Rides a Horse
Youngblood
WORDS BY KEITH CHACHKES
PHOTOS BY EMMA PARSONS PHOTOGRAPHY