Russian Circles, Cloakroom, Wildhoney

Russian Circles are a heavy rock instrumental trio from Chicago. Comparisons to Pelican and Isis have been tiresome at best -- and inaccurate at worst -- as RC differ in key ways. The construction of their tunes is more intricate, not reliant as much on the heavy riff and the elegant phrase -- though it's not quite as delicate as Explosions in the Sky or Growing, either. Tight, constructed yet somehow sprawling rock, there is vulnerability amid the heaviness and noise. It's like a form of instrumental poetry, woven, articulated slowly and deliberately, and all designed to take you "there," wherever your particular "there" is. The buzz on this band in Chicago has been big and it's easy to see why. Now playing with Botch/These Arms Are Snakes bassist Brian Cook. Suicide Squeeze.


Further Out, the anticipated debut full length from the reclusive Indiana trio Cloakroom, can be defined best as an exploratory sonic mission. From the album's opener, "Paperweight," the crushing force of a wall of distorted bass and pounding drumming collapses to uncover the airy, reverb-soaked vocals of guitarist Doyle Martin, who's carrying a sullen burden that seems just as weighed down. From the headbanging heaviness of "Moon Funeral" to the ethereal moments of songs like "Starchild Skull" and Mesmer," Cloakroom's output is the end result of researching seemingly dissimilar elements like atmospheric post-rock, punishingly slow stoner metal, and cathartic emo and how their best qualities can work into a final, organic sound, masterfully navigated by the expert and completely analog production of Matt Talbot. Further Out boasts the timelessness of a classic record: it is expansive and exploratory while still reflective and referential to the astral tendencies of predecessors like Hum and Jesu. Further Out, available now in two easy volumes.


Baltimore-based guitar band Wildhoney have navigated through a grand canyon of pop music to create Your Face Sideways, a new 12" EP out on Topshelf Records on October 16, 2015. Traveling forward under a clear sky, Wildhoney pass under a series of constellations: first the Shangri-Las Nebula, then the rarely seen Cocteau Twins Hydra. Heard along the road through open windows, carols of Patsy Cline echo like siren songs.

In Wildhoney's dark, lucid, and hook-heavy landscape, Zach Inscho plays drums, Joe Trainor and Marybeth Mareski play guitars, Alan Everhart plays bass, and Lauren Shusterich sings. Together the group makes their own sense of the pop tradition, as heard on recent tours with Ceremony, Eternal Summers and Whirr. Many have noticed the band's energy and efforts, and it has earned them high praise from NPR, the Chicago Tribune, Noisey, Impose, and Brooklyn Vegan amongst others.

On their 2015 debut LP Sleep Through It (Deranged/Forward Records), Wildhoney proved themselves masters of creating a cohesive, yet diverse, full-length set of songs that left the listener wanting more. Critics noted the band's thoughtfulness and attention to dynamic. Sleep Through It was preceded by two EPs - a self-titled release (Nostalgium Directive) that showed off the band's heavy punk influences and first nervous forays into pop, and Seventeen Forever (Photobooth Records) on which the group advanced bravely forward, refining their sound and highlighting their catchy vocal melodies.

Wildhoney choose to use songwriting and melody as primary vehicles on their pop excursions, a traditional approach they first proposed on Sleep Through It and wholly celebrate on Your Face Sideways. The five songs on Side A of the EP were recorded at Marlborough Farms by New York pop legend Gary Olson (Jens Leckman, Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose, Literature, Architecture in Helsinki), and are steered by Shusterich's vocals. Like a sculptor, Shusterich molds her voice to carry sweet melodies against uptempo instrumentation, poetically exploring loss and depression through her lyrics. The long, slower composition "FSA II" comprises the entirely of Side B, expanding on what was explored on "FSA" on their debut LP. Recorded in Baltimore by Jordan Romero in his bedroom directly to tape, the track uses sparse repetition, minimal guitar, glockenspiel, flute, synths and field recordings to remind the listener that while noise and effects may come and go, Wildhoney hold a map to pop magic by way of many alternate routes to come, both of the heart and the head.