Nine albums in, Russian Circles have very little left to prove.
Which is probably why “Empath” and “Eluvial” don’t sound particularly interested in proving anything.
With ‘Nine’ due August 28 via Sargent House (Botch, Brutus, Helms Alee, Mutoid Man, Rezn, The Armed…), the trio have released two tracks that cover familiar Russian Circles territory — enormous bass, meticulous dynamics, riffs built somewhere between post-rock and blunt-force trauma — without simply photocopying the past.
“Empath” is the less subtle of the two : tt opens with guitar noise hovering somewhere between malfunctioning machinery and bagpipes being swallowed by a black hole, before Brian Cook’s bass enters sounding deeply unhappy about something.
Then it gets heavy. Not elegant-heavy. Not “cinematic exploration of sonic weight” heavy. Heavy-heavy. There’s even a “knuckleheaded hardcore breakdown,” to borrow the unusually accurate official description. Russian Circles doing knuckleheaded hardcore in 2026? Fine by us.
“Eluvial,” meanwhile, takes the opposite route.
Less immediate, more expansive, it gives the trio room to stretch rather than simply flatten everything in front of them. Sullivan builds the landscape, Turncrantz keeps pushing through it, and Cook continues treating the traditional job description of “bass player” as a loose suggestion. Where “Empath” hits, “Eluvial” unfolds.
Neither represents a dramatic reinvention of Russian Circles. Good. After nearly twenty years, reinvention for its own sake would probably be considerably less interesting than three musicians continuing to refine a language that was already unmistakably theirs. And that language has always depended on contrast: beauty against abrasion, patience against impact, enormous crescendos against the spaces that make them enormous in the first place.
The context around ‘Nine’ has changed, though.
Sullivan lives in Los Angeles, Cook on Vashon Island and Turncrantz remains in Chicago. The band now exists across physical distance, with the three describing the creative process as a way of navigating ageing, time and increasingly separate lives.
Very grown-up stuff. Fortunately, the riffs remain socially irresponsible. They’ve also returned to Kurt Ballou (Converge), who produced ‘Guidance’, ‘Blood Year’ and ‘Gnosis’. So anyone expecting Russian Circles to suddenly discover acoustic folk probably shouldn’t hold their breath.
What “Empath” and “Eluvial” actually tell us about ‘Nine’ is relatively simple.Russian Circles still sound like Russian Circles. They just haven’t started sounding like a band trying to sound like Russian Circles.
Nine albums in, that distinction matters.
…Tracklist…
- 01 Borehole
- 02 Empath
- 03 Eluvial
- 04 E2
- 05 Meridian
- 06 Arletta
- 07 Seventh Seal
