Russian Circles - When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad

     Do you like post-rock and post-metal? Do you like it big and epic? Do you prefer it to be instrumental? How did sleepmakeswaves the other day treat you?

     Depending on how you answered the questions above, you may or may not take a liking to instrumental three-piece Russian Circles. They deliver all of the epic, ebb-and-flow goodness you've come to expect from your post-rock/post-metal bands, with none of those pesky word things gumming up the works.

     Russian Circles can sound jammy and unfocused at times, but they make up for this by telling a compelling narrative at others. If you've got the time to put eight minutes in, "When the Moutain Comes to Muhammad" from 2009's Geneva will reward your investment. Just don't expect Russian Circles to get where they're going in a hurry.

Russian Circles - Youngblood

     With Instrumental Week continuing this evening, I figured it's only fitting to feature a band that I mentioned yesterday in my description of Salt of the Chief Cornerstone. They're kinda trendy in instrumental metal circles right now, but there's still probably lots of you out there who don't know them, so tonight we're going with a song by Russian Circles.

     Your song tonight is "Youngblood" from the 2008 album Station, which happens to be the song by which I discovered this instrumental three-piece. I think I dig 2009's Geneva better, but Station is still a great example of Russian Circles' style, and "Youngblood" is one of my favourite cuts from the latter record. So enjoy it as another reminder of just how powerful music can be, even without those clumsy word thingies.

Song of the Day: Russian Circles - Malko

     Today is a continuation of yesterday's theme of reminding you about shit I've already mentioned. However, unlike Refused, a band you should almost be ashamed not to have heard of by this point, today's band is not one I'll shun you for not knowing. That being said, they're cool, and you'll still be a cooler, less shunnable person for having heard them, so do yourself a favour and wise up right now to instrumental masters Russian Circles.

The List: Instrumetal

     OK, today I’m debuting The List, the first of what I intend to be several semi-regular, semi-themed posts here at Loud Noises. When I do a List post, I’ll be coming up with (gasp!) a list of bands/albums/whatever centred on a particular theme. (I know, I know, real original. Shut up.) Rather than agonize over actually ranking whatever it is I happen to be listing, these are just going to be lists of stuff you should check out, in no particular order (although I will of course mention when I think something is especially badass or otherwise worthy of note). And to start the listing off right, I’m going to try turning you on to what I feel might be a somewhat underappreciated variety of metal: instrumental metal, which for the purposes of this post I’ve decided to call instrumetal (nice portmanteau, huh?)