Empros

Description

New embossed gatefold jacket w/ printed inner sleeve + download card. Very limited Clear w/ red, silver, magenta splatter vinyl available for a short while.

Russian Circles returns with a re-issue of their legendary album Empros complete with a redesigned, embossed gatefold jacket, now pressed on two new limited edition colours. Empros picks up where the anthemic riffs and melodies of 2009s Geneva left off and injects evermore slithering rhythms amid skull-crushing heft with all the visceral intensity of Godflesh, Swans and Neurosis. Put simply, Empros is Russian Circles Master of Reality: a radical revision of both heavy and melody that is monolithic in its clarity and perfection. Or, like a lone surviving wooly beast emerging from a brutal winters frost, Empros is the sound of a band shaking the ages from its shoulders with all the brutal force of a behemoth awakened. Taking to Chicagos Phantom Manor studio once again with producer Brandon Curtis of The Secret Machines & Interpol who also helmed the bands previous album Geneva Russian Circles set out to experiment with their sound in new ways that would still reflect their live sound. In so doing, the band reached a new creative apex in which each of the musicians, guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook impart a streamlined and intensified attack to their songs that pummels even as it shifts throughout a range of moods and tempos. The album opens with an imposing mechanical drone leading into funereal guitar notes that are abruptly interrupted by a propulsive drum beat as the proceedings of 309 erupt into something akin to a neo-industrial revision of Celtic Frost. The song lunges through nearly 9 minutes of masterful rhythmic shifts and brutal guitar warfare with such assertive grace it sounds as though the band is throwing down a gauntlet defying all challengers. Mladek kicks off with the soaring notes of Sullivans signature hammer-on guitar arpeggios as Cooks volume-swelling bass notes surge like bubbling molten lava. Turncrantzs innovative rephrasing of the drum pattern elevates the song as it slinks from part to part, guided by the syncopated chatter traded between chiming guitar notes and churning bass. Elsewhere, there are beautiful moments of melodic respite, helping to underscore the albums majestic strength. And, there may even be a few surprises awaiting within the albums six tracks. There are riffs, yes many of them. But, with Empros the entire band seems to be the embodiment of the riff itself.