Russian Circles will be headlining a six week long overseas tour in support of their latest critically praised release Empros out now on Sargent House. Direct support on all the shows except Moscow will be Deafheaven. Remember to always check with venues directly to confirm show times and age restrictions.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES & DEAFHEAVEN OVERSEAS TOUR 2012 
Apr 05 - Prague, CZ @ Matrix
Apr 06 - Vienna, AT @ Arena
Apr 07 - Munich, DE @ Feierwerk
Apr 08 - Dresden, DE @ Beatpol
Apr 09 - Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
Apr 10 - Warsaw, PL @ Hydrozagadka
Apr 11 - Vilnius, LT @ Propaganda
Apr 12 - Riga, LV @ Gertrudes 101 
Apr 13 - Tallinn, ES @ Electric Storm Festival at Tapper
Apr 14 - Helsinki, FI @ Virgin Oil Company
Apr 15 - Moscow, RU @ Gogol  (Russian Circles only)
Apr 16 - Stockholm, SE @ Strand
Apr 17 - Oslo, NO @ Revolver
Apr 18 - Gothenberg, SE @ Truckstop Alaska
Apr 19 - Copenhagen, DK @ KB 18 
Apr 20 - Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang
Apr 21 - Utrecht, NI @ Tivoli
Apr 22 - Brussels, BE @ Magasin 4 
Apr 23 - Esch-Sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal
Apr 25 - Glasgow, UK @ Stereo
Apr 26 - Belfast, IE @ Speakeasy
Apr 27 - Limerick, IE @ Dolan’s Warehouse
Apr 28 - Dublin, IE @ Button Factory
Apr 29 - Manchester, UK @ The Ruby Lounge
Apr 30 - London, UK @ Scala Theater
May 02 - Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
May 03 - Kortrijk, BE @ De Kreun
May 04 - Koln, DE @ Gebaeude 9 
May 05 - Karlsruhe, DE @ Die Stadtmitte
May 06 - Zurich, CH @ Rote Fabrik
May 07 - Geneva, CH @ Le Kab
May 08 - Milan, IT @ Magnolia
May 09 - Lyon, FR @ Le Clacson
May 11 - Bilbao, ES @ Azkena
May 12 - Porto, PT @ Hard Club
May 13 - Lisbon, PT @ Musicbox
May 14 - Madrid, ES @ Ritmo & Compas
May 15 - Barcelona, ES @ Apolo 2

ALWAYS CHECK HERE FOR UPDATES

Chicago trio Russian Circles continue their steady ascent with their fourth album “Empros”. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed “Geneva” doesn’t stray far from their blueprint with opener “309″ barking into life revealing familiar refrains and stark, ominous echoes. With so many bands today overproducing the life out of every single note, this resonates with a rich tone that is occasionally mournful but always powerful. It is as refreshing as it is punishing to hear this kind of vitality in a band that trades in lengthy and often bleak (in the very best way) instrumentals.

The only real evolution in style since their last opus seems to be an added thrust of metallic glee in the heavier sections combined with a more streamlined approach to the songwriting. Although the individual tracks still build progressively with ambient intros and creeping basslines, they certainly do manage to get to the point a little quicker than in previous outings. As always they bely their three-piece make up by consistently achieving the kind of room-filling cacophony that many larger bands never even come close to.

The rhythmic drive of this album is nigh on perfect too. Dave Turncrantz’s drumming is way more intricate and busy than many so called ‘post-rock’ bands tend to opt for, but it never crowds the music or seems overly fussy in the context of such sprawling tunes. He throws in jazz-tinged flashes and fills that complement rather than clutter the expansive sound and really make this album something special.

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Metacritic Top 25 Highest-Reviewed Albums of 2011 is a rundown of the best albums of the past year as determined by their Metascores — an average of all reviews given by professional critics at the time of each album’s original release. Note that live albums, reissues, compilations, and the like are excluded from this chart. - Click to See Top 25

29. Russian Circles - Empros
Released: October 25, 2011 (Sargent House)

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01. Russian Circles /Album: Empros  Label: Sargent House

Why I Chose This: In reality Russian Circles and Tom Waits have tied for first. I place this instrumental album ahead of Waits simply because he’s a fucking legend and these guys aren’t…..yet. Russian Circles have completely outdone themselves with Empros. They have made a perfect record, an album so flawless that every time I listen to it I discover something else I missed. Empros is not a perfect record because the songs are so good, which they are or because the musicianship is above reproach, which it is. Empros is the best record of the year because there is no easy way to figure it out. You can’t just listen to this album and get it, you have to scratch, you have to listen and embrace the experience

Don’t let my pretentious rock musings fool you, Russian Circles still bring the rock. The grooves are huge on Empros, menacing and pit stomping fun. However, that’s not all that goes on. There are also bits of electronica, delicate notes and even some nods towards dance and funk. These other elements combined with the huge rock are what keep Empros from being easily defined. You can pick out the elements of a song, but now how they work or how one song bleeds into another even when they are so different. That lack of definition is what keeps you coming back to Empros and trying to figure out why it makes you feel the way you do. Russian Circles have written an album that will confuse you, rock you, confound you and, above all else, make you feel. Empros forces you to think while it nourishes your soul and that’s what makes it record of the year.

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Thanks for this great video, sent to us by Charles Cors of Russian Circles track Schiphol from the album Empros.

They seem to have a passion for Europe, these Russian Circles. Their last album, 2009’s Geneva, while undeniably accomplished, was named after only the second-most-populous city in Switzerland, while latest effort Empros is seemingly named after a Greek news site.

What we can learn from this (aside from never to use Google to help write the opening paragraph of a review) is that the band have a wider-ranging gaze than that of many of their Stateside contemporaries. Where other, more lethargic, instrumental acts would be content to lean upon one riff for the duration of a song, Russian Circles have proved themselves to possess a rhythmic intensity which empowers riffs with an ever-evolving nature, resulting in compositions which are as unique as they are powerful.

With Geneva as the summit of the Chicago three-piece’s ascent to post-metal beautification, Empros is given the difficult task of answering the question ‘where do we go from here?’ The answer is to deliver more of the same crushing, and often startling, musicianship but this time with a more streamlined and, dare I say it, refined approach. It’s a consistently gradual progression which defines Empros; contrasts in tone and texture are always smooth and never abrasive, despite their often overtly aggressive nature. Indeed, Russian Circles have become masters of the art of the chameleon-riff, one that shifts to match its surroundings but without ever losing its own sense of individuality and purpose.

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“Once it gets too fancy, I started losing the groove,” says guitarist Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles’ deceptively dense music.

Indeed the Chicago-based post-rock band are capable of creating intricately layered pieces of music, often from simple, intertwining melodies that when combined are capable of creating harsh soundscapes, vast acoustic caverns and everything in between.

On their latest album, Empros, Russian Circles tend to pay more attention to those extremes than the stuff in the middle. You might swear Johnny Greenwood was behind the ambient folk of “Schiphol,” while “309” wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Celtic Frost record. And dynamics aside, Empros also features a major first for the band: Their first track with vocals, album closer “Praise Be Man.”

I recently caught up with Russian Circles guitarist Mike Sullivan, who acted as a guide through the musical journey that is Empros.

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Russian Circles Empros

In its ongoing attempt to render heavy metal lighter than air, the instrumental trio Russian Circles has made some giant leaps upward—the most recent being 2009’s gorgeous Geneva, an album that emulsified Godflesh and Godspeed You! Black Emperor into a thick yet atmospheric protoplasm. It’s taken two years for Russian Circles to follow up with Empros, and it deviates from Geneva’s chamber-industrial ambience in a major way: The disc’s long gestation has given Empros opportunity to skip a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder.

Empros also brings something the band has long lacked, according to its detractors: low end. Bludgeoning in its density, the opener, “309,” comes on like a collapsing star. Bassist Brian Cook delivers his most tensile, tendon-like lines since his days with Botch and These Arms Are Snakes; instead of solos, guitarist Mike Sullivan plays ghosts. And on “Atackla,” Dave Turncrantz uses the drum kit as both an earthmover and a launch pad. By the time the gauzy, Swans-like gospel of “Praise Be Man” is pulverized by the distorted force of some heavenly fist, the disc has been swept off the planet entirely.

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Empros is the album Russian Circles have been striving to concoct since the band’s inception seven years ago. On the three previous releases, the instrumental, post-rock juggernauts honed their craft of incrementally building, charismatic, Kraken-summoning riffs from start to finish. But with this fourth release, the Chicago-originated power trio used the right amount of ingredients from its past three recipes to achieve Iron Chef status with Empros. The six-song album intricately blends fat, grisly, discordant riffage with melodic, atmospheric, proggy sprinklings to create a sonically elaborate and raw package.

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A balancing act on a cosmic scale, Empros — the fourth LP from mostly instrumental Chicago trio Russian Circles— marries light to dark, order to chaos. Empros swings from the exceedingly beautiful to the punishingly physical in seconds flat. Every note on Empros is its right place, every surface scraped-up just so; a recent Decibel writeup found bassist Brian Cook claiming he’d never make another record “from the ground up” like the meticulously constructed Empros. Shame, that; as on 2009’s swarmed-with-strings Geneva, the expanse charted by the grandiose Empros is very vast indeed.

Building on the strides they made on Geneva’s adventurous first half, Russian Circles complicate the drift-and-build of most post-rock, injecting craggy climaxes, letting the low end take the lead. Highlight “Mlàdek” finds a rousing, almost Broken Social Scene-style guitar chug careening headlong into a patch of black metal-inspired ballast; the shift in tone’s a bit jarring, but considering the disparity of styles at play, the transition’s pretty flawless. Empros’ best moments— the snowdrift strings that blow across the end of “Schiphol” and into “Atackla”, the patch cord static and drums that open “Batu,” the aforementioned “Mlàdek” assault— find some little sliver of gorgeousness overwhelmed by some orbit-upsetting rumble from Cook or some out-from-nowhere turnaround from drummer Dave Turncrantz.

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Who: Russian Circles

Vibe: Instrumental, progressive metal 

Bio: The Chicago/Seattle -based trio is made up of Mike Sullivan on guitar, Brian Cook on bass, and Dave Turncrantz on drums. They came out with their debut album, Enter, in 2006, followed by their second and third albums, Station (2008) and Geneva (2009). Since then the band has worked with producer Brandon Curtis (The Secret Machines and Interpol) for both Geneva and Empros (2011). Watch a video of Russian Circles performing the single “Geneva” from their previous album below!

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Chicago post-rock heroes return with stellar fourth album…  

Rating: 9 /10

For a genre that’s literally bursting at the seams these days, it’s hard to see how post-rock can really progress and stay fresh. Fortunately, these thoughts don’t seem to bother Russian Circles. The Chicagoans unleash album number four and show no signs of withering just yet. The rousing ‘309’ kicks things off while the glorious ‘Mladek’ sounds like they’ve enlisted The Edge (circa ‘Joshua Tree’) to lend a hand with the distinctive guitar tone. ‘Schipol’ is pure majestic bliss and closer ‘Praise Be Man’ sees bassist Brian Cook on rare vocal duties to create a dreamy Spiritualized moment. Their name might suggest one thing, but this lot are definitely not going around in circles; this is their best record yet.

Darren Taylor