By Andrew Bansal
Nov. 28th 2011, The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA: Amidst the insanity of an unexpectedly busy month of November was this show at the Troubadour, as Chicago-based instrumental rock trio Russian Circles paid a visit, along with San Francisco’s ambient extreme metal outfit Deafheaven, and the first ever West Coast appearance from Marriages, a new band featuring members of Red Sparowes. I had never seen any of these bands before, and I almost missed this show, because I only found out about it last Wednesday. A good friend of mine mentioned it to me at the Cynic show that night. It was a near miracle that everything got sorted out for me in time for the show despite the thanksgiving break, and I was even able to interview the band. I am glad and grateful that I ended up making it to this show, because it was not merely a show, it was an experience, and a musical journey.
Marriages opened up the show at 8 o clock. I knew that the band has Greg Burns and Emma Ruth Rundle from Red Sparowes in its lineup, but honestly I wasn’t familiar with Red Sparowes’ music, going into the show. So I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn’t in a position to compare Marriages with Red Sparowes. Purely based on what I saw, I would describe Marriages’ set as 30 minutes of dark, spacey, weird and largely experimental post-rock music. Emma was using vocoder-type effects on top of her vocals for pretty much the entire set, and both Greg and Emma were applying plenty of distortion to their instruments. I was quite intrigued by their music, and it definitely held my attention for the entirety of the performance. After I got home from the show, I checked out some Red Sparowes songs on YouTube, and for those of you who know that band already, I can tell you that Marriages is a lot darker, and in essence, a lot more experimental, but I think most Red Sparowes fans will incline towards appreciating what this new band offers. An interesting beginning to the evening, that’s for sure.
Deafheaven hit the stage shortly after Marriages were done, and very few bands have justified their name to the extent these guys did last night. They were so loud that they almost literally left this crowd in a deaf heaven by the time they were done playing. I used the term ambient extreme metal when I mentioned them at the start of this review, but that was merely a broad classification. They certainly had an ambient feel to their music, but predominantly boasted of black metal and hardcore elements. There was also a strong shoegaze vibe going on, not only during certain points in the music but in the stage mannerisms as well. There is no doubt in my mind that bands who pretend to be troo black metal just need to watch a Deafheaven set, in order to see how it’s supposed to be done, how musical intensity and darkness is supposed to be presented on stage. No Satanic gimmicks, no corpse paint, no human or animal skulls. Just music. I couldn’t help but laugh at the epic failure of the black metal band I saw the previous night, when I compared that to Deafheaven’s relentless barrage of extreme music. Seriously, if you call yourself a black metal fan, you’re doing yourself severe injustice if you haven’t checked out Deafheaven yet. When it comes to sheer loudness, out of all bands I’ve seen this year, these guys come next only to Motorhead in that aspect. In fact, one of the guitarists simply blew out his amp and left the stage towards the end of the set, that’s how brutal the sound coming out of his guitar was. Their performance can be perfectly summed up by the conversation I overhead just after they were done. One guy yelled in his friend’s ear, “Dude! That was fucking great.” His friend replied, “What?” And the first guy said, “Exactly.”
At 10.15, Russian Circles began their set and took this audience through an incredible musical journey. Instrumental bands are always great live, because you get to be completely immersed into the music by seeing what each member is doing on their instruments. Last night was no different. Russian Circles were not only great, they were outstanding. Their music was an astonishingly perfect blend of heavy and melodic segments. In addition to the meat of the tunes, there were plenty of slow, quiet intro pieces and interludes, which succeeded in building up tension and anticipation for the music that immediately followed each of them. Drummer Dave Turncrantz was the primary instigator of this feeling, as he accompanied these segments with his sequences of steadily rising drum beats, sequences that ended in powerful moments. Every time it happened, you could feel everyone’s collective tension being released in that single moment. Head-banging furiously was one of the ways people released this tension, myself included. Besides Dave, the other two members Mike Sullivan on guitar and Brian Cook on bass weren’t left behind whatsoever, and the three combined to create a spellbinding period of music.
They played about half of the latest album “Empros”, and I can safely say that the songs sound better on stage than they do on the album itself. It was clear to me that the stage is where these guys belong, and playing live is what they enjoy most. They undoubtedly expressed themselves a lot more in the live setting.
Even though their music is progressive to a large extent, I wouldn’t put it in the same category as the nerdy prog rock bands that you might think of when you see the word ‘progressive’. Russian Circles’ music came across as extremely heavy and gripping, and despite passages of varying styles, it was never about playing a million notes per minute or changing time signatures every 5 seconds. Their stage set-up was very basic, and their music boasted of purity, character and passion. Essentially what I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to be a prog nerd to enjoy Russian Circles. Without a doubt, their tunes are skillfully structured, but they are definitely not too intricate or complex. The bottom line is, it’s pure and heavy, and that’s the most endearing quality in my opinion. All in all, a mesmerizing performance, and one that I feel fortunate to have witnessed.
Rating: 10/10
Related: Russian Circles interview
Setlist: This is the set list they’ve been doing on the current run of dates, and I’m pretty sure this covers most of what they played last night, if not all.
1. Carpe
2. Atackla
3. Harper Lewis
4. Geneva
5. 309
6. Philos
7. Mladek
8. Youngblood
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