Life can be hard for a support band, often pushed to the front of the stage and afforded little room by the headliner’s kit, it can be difficult to make an impression. Luckily for REZN they are on tour with a band who are gracious enough to give them a decent soundcheck and a fair crack of the lights and this Chicago crew are savvy enough to put it to good use. With their strong focus on the riff and love of retro equipment, you feel that REZN would sound great even if banging out tunes in their garage, so when afforded the cavernous environs of the Institute’s second room, REZN cause a few jaws to drop with their monolithic psychedelic doom/stoner rock mash up. Yet it’s a set that’s full of surprises and when synth player Spencer Ouellette pulls out his saxophone, it seems slightly surreal but in terms of creating light and shade, it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t take the band long to win over the crowd, and while this is (rather surprisingly) the band’s very first UK show, I’m certain it won’t be their last.
Another band hailing from Chicago, Illinois (I’d like to know what they’re putting in the water), Russian Circles have been destroying stages for two decades so it seems right and proper that they should celebrate their twentieth anniversary with a world tour. After their native United States and Germany, the United Kingdom is the country with most shows and to say they have a special relationship with these shores would be an understatement and it is standing room only as we await the band. Such is the anticipation that a tangible tension crackles and fizzes the air, you can almost see the sparks flying as the clock slowly ticks down towards show time. It means that when the band finally take to the stage and launch into ‘309’ it feels as if someone has opened the floodgates and we’ve been hit by a huge tidal wave. Locking the crowd into a singular, unified groove means the get everyone present bobbing in unison so the venue soon resembles a sea of Hasidic kids rocking the Wailing Wall.
If it’s true that a picture can paint a thousand words, then the same can be said of instrumental music. A vocalist, whilst often a focal point, can turn off as many people as they turn on. Russian Circles are in an envious position that they’ve a sound that speaks volumes, it’s filmic and cinematic and instigates feelings within the listener in a way that words never could. Take the dark and oppressive ‘Quartered’ for example; the absence of lyrics only add to the overarching feeling of unease, it’s akin to being locked in a room with the most depraved serial killer, and there’s only going to be one winner. The band’s songs often veer into epic territory (and often extended in the live environment) and this provides a wide and deep canvas on which to paint their sound and the abstract, surrealist work they produce is equally arresting. As we reach set closer ‘Mlàdek’ somehow the venue is still standing, but if you want to know just how heavy three people can get, look no further than Russian Circles.
Russian Circles Set List:
- 309
- Harper Lewis
- Conduit
- Quartered
- Mota
- Geneva
- Betrayal
- Gnosis
- Youngblood
- Mlàdek
