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Live Reviews : Russian Circles, We Lost the Sea and Tangled Thoughts of Leaving @ Max Watts, Melbourne, 26/04/2019

By on April 28, 2019

On paper, this lineup looks kinda samey, in reality, the musical palette and experience is about as broad as can be imagined on such a bill. Three bands that mine similar musical terrain, that reside in a broader musical ballpark together, and yet each create a startlingly different vibe in a live setting. No vocals whatsoever, in fact nary a word is said on a microphone for the entire evening, and while your average Joe music fan might find that a little odd, to the sold-out throng of musically open-minded aficionados that braves the late autumn Melbourne chill this night, it is as natural as night following day.

Local support Tangled Thoughts of Leaving open with a deep, dredgy dirge and way more than hold their own on such an illustrious lineup. In fact, their sound is quite scary. And just when you think your psyche can’t handle much more of the unrelenting doominess, they perform a dynamic pull-back which releases much of the tension. The gloom is also offset beautifully by some sweet, tinkling piano lines and jammy ambient experimental moments. Naturally, they re-build to an almighty crescendo and the effect is quite devastating. Their performance alternatively caresses you with its hypnotic qualities and pummels you with its beautiful oppressiveness. Their set is a monster, what a way to open this evening of instrumental cacophony.

Sydney’s We Lost the Sea are quite a sight to behold. Six blokes onstage bearing a phalanx of guitars, keys to provide the weird and wonderful atmospherics and a human motion machine of a drummer. And the sound it creates rolls out across the audience and fills the venue in ebbing and flowing waves. Maybe slightly less doomy than Tangled Thoughts, although no less impactful and emotional, they create a transcendent ambience that veritably sends shivers down your spinal column, a surge and swell that is kaleidoscopic. Their tunes feature relentlessly repeating lines that simply never get boring, in fact they leave you wanting more. This band may have lost the sea, but they are in absolute command of their sound, their concept and their performance.

By stark contrast, there are half the number of people on stage when Russian Circles play, and yet the sound reaches dizzying new levels again. It is a sound that envelopes every member of the thoroughly spellbound audience, a sound that occupies sweet space in every square inch of the venue and within the psyche of the observer. How can three people create such all-encompassing noise? They do so much with just a syncopated drum groove and guitar ambience. It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, but it is happening right there before our eyes and ears nonetheless.

This band has been around for a decade and a half, producing six albums and with a seventh on the way. And it shows. These three artists are masters of their individual crafts, ad when they come together onstage, it is an otherworldly, immersive musical experience.

The instrumental post rock/post metal scene is a truly bountiful one, both here and across the globe. It veritably bulges with great bands, astounding sounds and amazing music, and this evening is yet more proof of that.

About

Rod Whitfield is a Melbourne-based writer and retired musician who has been writing about music since 1995. He has worked for Team Rock, Beat Magazine, themusic.com.au, Heavy Mag, Mixdown, The Metal Forge, Metal Obsession and many others. He has written and published his memoirs of his life and times in the music biz, and also writes books, screenplays, short stories, blogs and more.