Nine albums, particularly in a niche so seemingly niche as instrumental post-metal, are already impressive. Russian Circles are legends within that niche for a reason, though. Across their career they’ve established a trademark sound based around layered, looped guitars to create tectonic weight and still gone just off-piste enough to keep things fresh every time. With the imaginatively titled Nine, the most impressive thing is how Russian Circles demonstrate once again that they remain unmatched in taking a small niche and contorting it into new forms that never succumb to self-indulgence and pack a surprising amount of hooks.
Opener ‘Borehole’ is tense and foreboding at first, a simple melody that warps gradually until transforming into a pummelling riff. Though the pacing is slow, it’s not dull. Russian Circles are adept at navigating small changes in melody and keeping them engaging by varying other elements, from changing drum patterns to tempo shifts. Much as its namesake, the song bores its way in, a subtly engrossing listen. ‘Empath’ and ‘Eluvial’ are some of Nine’s best moments; the former delves into thrash and death metal, muscular riffs propelling the song and a relentless, chugging quasi-breakdown.
Russian Circles have always made the case that riffs can tell a story just as well as vocals. Nine is no exception, but there are atmospheric moments too such as ‘Eluvial’, whose meandering guitar lead conjures vast, windswept glaciers or icy forests before a euphoric, transformational crescendo that pays off the buildup in spades. ‘E2’ experiments more with electronic textures, pulsating synths snaking through the song. The drums are purposeful, nothing flashy but ideally suited to the world Russian Circles patiently build and then clobber you with. It rewards patience, as a slow pick scrape leads into another triumphant crescendo with cascading, punishing drum fills and crisp cymbals.
“It’s also one of their heaviest, too, the band sounding angrier and more ferocious than they have in some time.”
The only real reprieve where Russian Circles step out of a full-bore assault is ‘Arletta’, a 2-minute interlude of classical guitar, serene melodies lulling into a false sense of security that finale ‘Seventh Seal’ shatters with gusto. It’s perhaps the heaviest moment on the entire album, a thundering, churning track whose drum switchups and chugs are a brutish assault on the senses. It even brings the riff back but slower, in a vicious sludge segment that closes out the album in vitriolic fashion.
So what to make of Nine? Certainly, it’s one of their most riff-forward works to date, in a catalogue largely dominated by that. It’s also one of their heaviest, too, the band sounding angrier and more ferocious than they have in some time. The (quite boring) title belies the excellence within, a taut collection of tracks that clocks in just under 40 minutes and flies by in what feels like significantly less than that. There are no surprises here, no left-field turns or shifts, but as fans have come to love from the band, it’s just a gradual evolution and change to push their own horizons without abandoning a core sound that’s worked for two-plus decades. In other words, Nine is fantastic.