Russian Circles - Guidance

By Justin C. Russian Circles is now 10 years into their career, with six full lengths. An instrumental trio with just guitar, bass, drums, and the very occasional guest vocal appearance. So how do they manage to keep their sound so distinctly

By Justin C.


Russian Circles is now 10 years into their career, with six full lengths. An instrumental trio with just guitar, bass, drums, and the very occasional guest vocal appearance. So how do they manage to keep their sound so distinctly their own without making the same album over and over again? Is it just pure musical goodness? Yes, I'm going to go with that.

Guidance is an interesting choice for an album title, given that the cover art is a photo of a man being led to his own execution. Bassist Brian Cook's husband was given an envelope with a series of photos, with no explanation other than the enigmatic line, "I thought you should have these." We don't know if the man is a good guy or a bad guy, a political prisoner or a murderer, but it's hard not to hear a sense of defiance in this record after seeing that image of a man with his head held high, walking to his death.

I did a little more reading about this album than I usually do, but I found it interesting that Pitchfork's take was of a "more bad-ass Russian Circles" on this album, when my initial reaction was that it had some of their most delicate work to date on it. But in reality, it has both. The band has always been masters of dynamics. They don't pound you over the head with exhausting LOUDsoftLOUDsoft grinds like some bands in this genre do (*cough* Explosions in the Sky *cough*). Their swells and fades are well earned and well composed.

Photos by Caroline Harrison.

The first four tracks of Guidance merit special attention. They appear to be parts of one musical whole--there's no break between songs until the fifth track--so one's left to wonder if they're telling a story about the man on the cover, or something else entirely. All I know is that those tracks take me somewhere, and it's a place I want to stay. "Asa" is the delicate opener, with a faint tremolo riding over a simple but very effective plucked figure. At times, it put me in mind of Zeppelin's solo guitar works like "Black Mountain Side" or "Bron-Yr-Aur." Before you know it, though, the drums roll in like a thunderstorm and a sweeping riff comes in with "Vorel." "Mota" brings that defiant feeling again, with a very tasty staccato riff and a great moment when the bass steps out, loud and buzzing. "Afrika" rounds out this four-movement tour with cascades of sound and piercing melodies, giving you all the feels you need.

The rest of the tracks deserve this kind of attention, too, whether it's the abrasive dissonance in "Calla" or the doomy intro to "Lisboa," but song-by-song reviews can get tedious. So the bottom line: even if you think you're not a fan of instrumental music, or you have "all you need" with some of their contemporaries, just go buy this. Then listen. Then repeat with all their other albums.

Pyrrhon - The Mother of Virtues

By Justin C. All musical taste is inherently subjective, but sometimes I wonder why I pass over some particularly bizarre pieces of metal and not others. I'll be straight with you--I couldn't really get into Pyrrhon's last album, An Excellent Servant but a Terrible Master, in spite of its awesome title and artwork.

By Justin C.

Cover art by Caroline Harrison.

All musical taste is inherently subjective, but sometimes I wonder why I pass over some particularly bizarre pieces of metal and not others. I'll be straight with you--I couldn't really get into Pyrrhon's last album, An Excellent Servant but a Terrible Master, in spite of its awesome title and artwork. It just didn't click with me, but it's not like I can say it was too inaccessible. After all, I really like Portal, and I don't think there's any quantifiable measure by which Portal is easier to get into than Pyrrhon. So when Max approached me to write about Pyrrhon's latest, The Mother of Virtues, I almost passed. I didn't think there would be anything for me there. On the other hand, I pride myself on being open-minded about all things music, so I decided I needed to give the album at least one fair listen. A couple of hours later, after the third time through the album, I knew I would write about this, even though I had no idea what I'd write.

Photos by Caroline Harrison.

I've seen Pyrrhon called technical death metal a lot, but at least in the case of The Mother of Virtues, I think that's pretty far off the mark, especially given the kind of sound that phrase usually conjures up. This isn't a tightly focused blast of hyperspeed guitar riffs and turn-on-a-dime musical structures. There is technicality here, but there's also EVERYTHING else here. Calling this technical death metal is like calling Faith No More "rock." It's not wrong, per se, but it's completely inadequate. I used Faith No More in that analogy for good reason, because it's a comparison that I keep coming back to. This is in part because some of Doug Moore's snarlings sound like like amped-up versions of some of Mike Patton's characters, like the sleazy, menacing narrator of "Crack Hitler" from Angel Dust. But I think the comparison is apt in a wider sense, in that there's a huge genre mash up happening in both bands, mixing up rock, metal, jazz, funk, and plenty more. They're not really sound-alikes by any means, but if you got Faith No More together, pumped them full of stimulants, and had them record a new album, The Mother of Virtues might be the result. Like FNM, Pyrrhon makes mashing up different styles seem easy.

Photos by Caroline Harrison.

The second track of the album, "White Flag", is kind of a microcosm of the whole album. It starts out with slow, creeping doom and a low, drawn-out, "Yeeahhhh....," but it's not long before the vocals turn into a vicious blackened assault over a lurching, death-y riff. That's certainly not the end of the variety in riffs, either, since we also get some delightfully Gorguts-ian math freak outs. The madness is punctuated throughout the song's length with creepy, dissonant psychedelic interludes that I refuse to call ambient, on the grounds that there's nothing gentle or backgroud-music-y about them. I prefer to call these parts "creep-bient." And that's not even getting into the genuinely lovely melodies that rise to the surface. The icing on this insanity cake are the very well-written, rage-filled lyrics, like, "But our acid abstentions / Will dissolve the limestone beneath us / And when the sinkhole opens up / We won’t deserve to be pulled out."

Not only is this a mesmerizing stand-alone work, but it's making me go back and re-evaluate their back catalog. Given the amount of music I go through, it takes quite a musical statement to make me do that. If you're a big dummy like me and passed on this one when it came out, take a second (or third, or fourth) listen.