US / THEM: Russian Circles announce new album, Empros with cover art & track listing

Photo credit: Chris Strong

Chicago trio Russian Circles reveal the title, cover art, track listing and release date for their forthcoming new album today. The band's fourth full length, titled Empros will be available worldwide via Sargent House on October 25th. See cover art and full track listing below.

The hard working trio remains on the road this Fall with tour dates in Australia and New Zealand in September, followed by North American headlining shows in October & November -- including a performance on the Black Stage at the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX in early November. See all current dates below; more details to be announced soon.

Russian Circles return with not only their fourth and heaviest album to date -- but also with Empros they're poised to take the crown as innovators reinvigorating the staid trappings of genre. Empros picks up where the anthemic riffs and melodies of 2009's Geneva left off and injects evermore slithering rhythms amid skull-crushing heft with all the visceral intensity of Godflesh, Swans and Neurosis. Put simply, Empros is Russian Circles' Master of Reality: a radical revision of both heavy and melody that is monolithic in its clarity and perfection. Or, like a lone surviving wooly beast emerging from a brutal winter's frost, Empros is the sound of a band shaking the ages from its shoulders with all the brutal force of a behemoth awakened.

Taking to Chicago's Phantom Manor studio once again with producer Brandon Curtis of The Secret Machines & Interpol -- who also helmed the band's previous album Geneva -- Russian Circles set out to experiment with their sound in new ways that would still reflect their live sound. In so doing, the band reached a new creative apex in which each of the musicians, guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook impart a streamlined and intensified attack to their songs that pummels even as it shifts throughout a range of moods and tempos.

The album opens with an imposing mechanical drone leading into funereal guitar notes that are abruptly interrupted by a propulsive drum beat as the proceedings of "309" erupt into something akin to a neo-industrial revision of Celtic Frost. The song lunges through nearly 9 minutes of masterful rhythmic shifts and brutal guitar warfare with such assertive grace it sounds as though the band is throwing down a gauntlet defying all challengers. "Mladek" kicks off with the soaring notes of Sullivan's signature hammer-on guitar arpeggios as Cook's volume-swelling bass notes surge like bubbling molten lava. Turncrantz's innovative rephrasing of the drum pattern elevates the song as it slinks from part to part, guided by the syncopated chatter traded between chiming guitar notes and churning bass. Elsewhere, there are beautiful moments of melodic respite, helping to underscore the album's majestic strength. And, there may even be a few surprises awaiting within the album's six tracks. There are riffs, yes -- many of them. But, with Empros the entire band seems to be the embodiment of the riff itself.

Empros is Russian Circles' first full-length to be released worldwide exclusively via Sargent House, the band's longtime management company and record label that had previously released only the vinyl editions of its three prior albums. It will be available everywhere on LP, CD and Digital Download on October 25th, 2011.

Russian Circles - Australia & New Zealand 2011
Sept 07 - Melbourne @ East Brunswick Club
Sept 08 - Melbourne @ The Corner Hotel
Sept 09 - Canberra @ ANU Refectory
Sept 10 - Brisbane @ The Zoo

Sept 11 - Sydney @ Hermann’s Bar

Sept 13 - Auckland, NZ @ The Kings Arm w/ JAKOB
Sept 14 - Auckland, NZ @ Whammy Bar

Sept 15 - Wellington, NZ @ San Francisco Bath House w/ JAKOB
Sept 16 - Melbourne @ The Palace w/ Monster Magnet
Sept 17 - Perth @ The Bakery
Sept 18 - Adelaide @ Fowlers Live