LA Weekly Show Pick for 11/28/11 at The Troubadour: Russian Circles
Russian Circles, Deafheaven, Marriages
Doors 7:30pm At the Troubadour
However interesting its instrumentation, rock & roll traditionally achieves its most intimate connection through vocals, which makes sans-singing rockers like this Chicago group brave indeed. Like all effective mouthless outfits, this adventurous trio sees their dearth of words as more gift than curse, allowing them to explore places too dense and detailed for the frailties of the human voice, and structures too oblique to support repeated melody. On new album Empros, gauzy guitars step aside (or perhaps above) to let the bass flex and fuzz in the foreground, while drums batter with earnest bluster. The effect is that of a mute Secret Machines (whose Brandon Curtis produced the record), until closer “Praise Be Man” allows some blurry singing in and reminds that Russian Circles are largely instrumental wholly by choice.
By Paul Rogers
Marnie Stern, Tera Melos, Power Axe
