It’s been quite some time since I caught Russian Circles at The Sinclair. But, even now, it’s an experience I really can’t quite wrap my head around or get out of my ears either. I should start off by letting everyone know that my experience with bands like Russian Circles is very limited. My personal library of “post-metal” bands is pretty much exclusively centered around Boris and MONO. Also, the time when I caught OM in the same setting, it was the first time I ever saw a metal band live. Then, I wasn’t 100% convinced I had left with the quintessential metal experience. Now, even though Russian Circles could be (mis)labeled by some as post-rock, I am absolutely sure that I did this time around. I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

NY-locals Mutoid Man started the night off and actually lined in pretty well with what my non-metal background preconceptions as to what a metal show should be like: lots of headbanging, pure and loud aggression, and the chugga-chugga-chugga of the heavily distorted guitars. I can’t say, being an absolute noob to their material, that I recognized much. But, the crowd definitely filled those gaps for me. There was one song that caught my ear as possibly a cover of Black Sabbath, but other than that, it was the same blend of impressive riffing, but ultimately a bit shallow for the uninitiated.

Russian Circles followed and ultimately provided my ears, more specifically my eardrums, with the wakeup they desperately didn’t need. I saw Melt-Banana when they played (also at The Sinclair) last year and that was one of the loudest shows I’ve ever been to. It felt like Russian Circles took that level, ran it through another amplifier jacked up to 11, and then proceeded to rip apart anything that my eardrums could conceive as sound. I still have ringing in my hears sometimes that I equate to this show.

I ended up spending a little time trying to take a break from the aural onslaught near the back of the balcony and I still couldn’t really hear myself think. That was how loud it was. Having had a bit of time to reflect on this experience though, the music itself wasn’t all that thick or overly complex in the sense of layering. It was clear cut, almost to the edge of drone metal. It reminded me a lot of my experience with OM. The fans there were also very similar in my experiences with OM in the sense that they were what you might consider the more mature metal fan.

However, the difference this time was that the actual sound Russian Circles put out lined up a bit more with what my expectations would be from metal music. I would definitely qualify it a bit with a bit more of a mind towards creating a bit more of a visible landscape than short bursts of pure aggression. But, ultimately, the same elements that a journeyman of the genre would expect were there and in full view without any frills. And I can definitely appreciate that, even if my ears have yet to recover from what I could call my real first metal experience.