Empros. Blood Year. Station. Gnosis. Enter. List off the terse album titles in the discography of the Chicago-based metal outfit Russian Circles, and you might start to feel that you’re uttering a series of codewords meant to unlock an underground bunker in some unmarked part of the world. The enigma of these names is enhanced by the fact that Russian Circles, a trio consisting of Mike Sullivan (guitar), Brian Cook (bass), and Dave Turncrantz (drums), play a largely instrumental style of metal known commonly as “post-metal”, a frosty sonic terrain where there are no words to clue readers into cryptic meanings. The notes, downtuned and heavily distorted, do the talking.
With Nine, Russian Circles chose a name with a clearer referent. That title highlights that the collection of seven songs within is the ninth studio album in the band’s career—eighth for Cook, who joined Sullivan and Turncrantz on 2007’s Station. Typically, when people think of artistic anniversaries, round numbers stand out. A tenth anniversary record release is common; Russian Circles recently announced a commemorative vinyl edition of Guidance (2016).
Commemorative tours tend to occur at markers like the 20-year milestone, which will be the case for the band in the fall of 2026, coming two decades after their debut Enter. I spoke with Sullivan after the release of Nine in August by Sargent House and just before the trio began touring about the new music, and one of my first questions concerned this uncharacteristically literal aspect of the title.
“It’s finding its own relevance, to be honest,” he says of the number. “I like threes; I think there’s something special about the number three itself, and how it divides us, being a three-piece. Not to get into numerology too much, but there is something special about nine that has proven to make more sense to us individually and as a collective as we go.” About that “special thing”, Sullivan holds his cards close to his chest.
As our conversation about the album unfolds, it becomes clear that, for Russian Circles, Nine has no weighty expectations imputed into its chronological marking, beyond being another step in the evolution of the trio’s aesthetic. In reflecting on the span of those nine LPs, I bring up to Sullivan a unique show in which Russian Circles were the headliner, a 2012 gig at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles that functioned as a showcase for several Sargent House artists who, in the year 2013, would all release some of their finest music.
First on stage was Deafheaven, whose 2013 record Sunbather epitomizes the “blackgaze” sound. Then the Irish rockers And So I Watch You from Afar brought a jolt of exuberance to the stage, captured brilliantly in 2013’s All Hail Bright Futures. Chelsea Wolfe followed, foreshadowing the blossoming of her sound that would take shape in 2013’s Pain is Beauty. “I am a fan of those bands and people,” Sullivan says in remembering the evening.
Capping off the evening, Russian Circles, on the heels of 2011’s superb Empros, proved just how much their music had reached a distinct peak a year before releasing Memorial. To date, it’s the only new release I have given a perfect score for this publication. I ask Sullivan what, looking back on the intervening years, stands out to him about Russian Circles’ growth, and his answer matches the modesty with which he speaks.
“As far as us and our trajectory: to me, it’s immense gratitude that people still care about us, and that we can prepare and tour records in a day and age where there’s so many bands and subgenres, people being splintered all over. It’s not lost on me that we still get to do it, so the older I get and the more I see how rare it is for bands to be around this long … it’s almost humorous, like, ‘This is funny, but let’s keep going, make sure that we take this seriously.'”
One distinct feature of the recent LPs by Russian Circles is the handshakes that appear between them, moments where a riff or motif starts an idea that takes on a new life in the subsequent record. Sullivan calls them “tethers.” Nine‘s second single, the epic “Eluvial”, shares a family resemblance to the title track of Gnosis (2022), another nearly ten-minute sonic canvas with a reflective beginning that builds to a volcanic conclusion.
“Eluvial” adds electronics into the trio’s usual mix of guitar, bass, and drums. The old but tireless musical conceit: repetition with difference. Sullivan nods as I draw out the connection I hear between the two songs, and his remarks speak to what he calls the band’s “linear and sequential” songwriting.
“That whole back half of ‘Eluvial’, the whole black metal orchestrated part, was the first thing I got under my hands for Gnosis. I’ve been working on that since 2022 or so. The latter half of that song was in place right after Gnosis, so it makes sense that it sounds like that era. But the first half of the song took years to find. I wasn’t working on the riff continually; I put it to the side when I realized it’d need a whole front half. Then when we get our heads together we’d ask, ‘What does it need? What would be cool?’
“Years later, Dave and I came up with the first part of the song, and then Brian added his part.” That contribution included the electronic keyboards that burble in the early minutes. “Those electronic elements were a cool addition because it was so different from where [‘Eluvial’] was when I was writing it first around Gnosis. I’m glad it took that long to write that song. It’s not a continual process; it’s touch-and-go. We keep the original file, then return to it and ask what fits. It’s good to have multiple irons in the fire so we aren’t trying to force anything.”
In characterizing the dynamic between himself, Cook, and Turncrantz as collaborators, Sullivan turns to a metaphor recently explored cinematically in Olivia Wilde’s film The Invite, but less common in the world of metal. “We trust each other: if Brian came up with a great banjo part, it’s whatever’s cool to us. If Dave pulled out a solo drum part, we’d be cool with that. A lot of our songs start with [Dave and I] sending a song to Brian, and he’ll add a minute and a half of intro with just his material. We’ve done everything, so everything’s open. It’s like we’re opening the marriage or something: try it out! We’re very aware of what we like, but we’re very hesitant to say no; we’ll try out every idea before we say no.”
Consistency also shaped Nine as much as that spirit of exploration Sullivan recounts. I ask him about a pronounced change in the quality of the guitar distortion beginning with Guidance (2016), and he immediately credits one of the trio’s most important compatriots. He specifically attributes that sonic quality to Kurt Ballou, returning to the engineer’s chair for Nine after working on all LPs since Guidance. He says he “owes all of” that development to him. Sullivan praises Ballou’s “touch and wealth of knowledge on how to record sounds, and also his teaching [him] about gear”. Sullivan and Ballou’s main directive on Nine was to use Hiwatt amps, which the former calls “the staple of what [he] does live”.
More than the technical aspects of his engineering, Ballou’s value in the studio stems from what Sullivan calls his ability to “leave room for each musician to sound like themselves.” Ballou’s résumé runs the gamut of contemporary underground metal, but those bands “don’t sound similar” because of his presence. “He doesn’t have a bag of tricks he relies upon where he’s using some specific filter or piece of gear,” Sullivan says.
The gear expertise does help, though. If you want to spend an afternoon sampling guitars, Ballou makes an ideal companion. Sullivan reminisces about a session for Guidance in which he was “auditioning” different Gibson Les Pauls for recording, during which Ballou remarked, “Yeah, Gibson got a lot right in the late 1950s.”
The mood remains similarly copacetic between Sullivan, Cook, and Turncrantz. Sullivan speaks fondly of “Borehole”, the opening track that stemmed from an arrangement Cook prepared and brought to the band. The rapport between Sullivan and Turncrantz catalyzed some hypnotically repetitive moments that define the second half of Nine, the Philip Glass-esque two-hand tap riff on “E2”, and the tension-laden hi-hat hits on “Meridian”.
“We referred to it as ‘the Philip Glass part of the song’ when Brian was adding his parts,” he says, nodding in acknowledgment of the Glass comparison. Sullivan expresses his appreciation for Turncrantz’s ability to “tell [him] to chill the fuck out” when coming up with guitar parts. “He’s a fun drummer to play with,” Sullivan says, “because I can just stay with what I’m doing and he’ll manipulate the beat.”
Sullivan presents his memory of composing “E2” as one example of this aspect of the band’s self-understanding. “That particular moment, I was intentionally building a circular part that just goes and goes, as something we could build upon. Then Dave manipulated it, and eventually we changed time signatures. It’s an uninteresting part by itself; it came from a guitar warm-up exercise that’s usually done way faster and cooler. But we’re not playing music for guitar players; we’re playing music for expression, creating a different world.”
Sullivan can hit lightning-fast speeds at times, but on Nine, as with Russian Circles’ music as a whole, his guitar playing is defined by lattice-like work with looping pedals—before thunderous riffs like those on “Empath” and “Seventh Seal” crash through the amplifiers.
One of Nine‘s most creative moments for Sullivan as a guitarist is also the record’s most unassuming: an echoey, solo acoustic guitar piece called “Arletta,” that runs just two minutes. Such brief interludes appear on many metal records, but “Arletta” also functions as a variation on a theme in a way I hadn’t noticed when listening to Nine. “The melody, the A-part of the song,” Sullivan explains, “is an interpretation of the black metal part of ‘Eluvial.’ Those are actually the same song, but pushing and pulling which notes we choose from the bass voice.”
Sullivan drew inspiration from the classical guitarist John Williams, whose version of Mikis Theodorakis’ “Epitafios No. 3 in D Minor” led him to “reverse engineer” what would become “Arletta” and the back end of “Eluvial”. About that source material, he says, “When Williams plays it, he’s doing classical guitar stuff; on the original version, [Theodorakis] is tremolo picking, rapidly playing notes, almost like black metal is played.” Including two iterations of that melody was not meant to be an easter egg, however. “You’d have to be a psychopath to hear it; I can barely hear it at this point because they’ve both grown so much in their own right.”
This isn’t to say you should expect Russian Circles: Unplugged as the trio’s next jaunt. In the few times I’ve seen the band play live, I’ve come to associate Sullivan with the Gibson Les Paul, an affinity he acknowledges readily as our conversation turns to guitars. “I still gravitate toward the Gibson school of guitars, in terms of scale length, mahogany neck, mahogany body, maple top, ebony fretboard.”
The guitars he talks about most in our discussion are those made by Sacha Dunable, who Sullivan describes as an “awesome dude” who is “good for the community, for underground, counter-culture people like us” and “helps the little guy”. In 2021, while touring with System of a Down and Korn, Russian Circles had many of their instruments stolen from their tour U-Haul during a hotel night in Chowchilla, California—a part of the state known for things going missing.
Some of the band’s gear, including a 1985 Gibson Les Paul belonging to Sullivan, was returned in 2024. After having to pivot suddenly following the theft, Sullivan borrowed a Dunable guitar from Chelsea Wolfe. Since then, he has been particularly drawn to Dunable’s ergonomic shapes. He collaborated with Dunable to create a guitar that melds old-school Gibson tonewood setups with the atypical shapes used by the small California-based company.
One might expect a guitarist who plays heavy rock to talk up a guitar’s heft or imposing pickups, but in our chat Sullivan emphasizes playability above all else. “Sacha’s guitars are so comfortable, whether I’m on the couch watching a hockey game, playing a show, working on a riff, his guitars just feel comfortable. I like being unable to pass a guitar without feeling compelled to pick it up.” Above all else, he stresses that a guitar’s true value for an individual player is “whatever makes you play. As long as you’re playing, that’s the important thing. The most beautiful and expensive guitar means nothing to me if I don’t want to pick it up and play it.”
In the weeks after our conversation, Sullivan will pick up his instruments and voyage around North America to promote Nine. I ask him whether, this far into a musical career, the excitement of taking music out on the road remains the same, particularly given the increasingly tough conditions faced by touring musicians in the United States.
He is excited for the road, especially because the music of Nine, for him and his bandmates, “leans into the live performance of the songs” and thus far they have only played one tune previously. At the same time, he acknowledges touring now is not the glamorous rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle one imagines of the many 1970s rock bands that influenced Russian Circles. Sullivan likens the grind of touring at times to “helping a friend move apartments.”
“We’re not a ‘bus band,'” Sullivan elaborates, “so it’s very much a laborious tour for us. There’s not much fucking around in parking lots at venues before the crowd gets there. We’re just chatting with our buds in the van all day long, then you get to the club. You make sure your gear works, then you go eat dinner, then you go to the show, then you pack up, and the next day you go to a new city.” The same thing that holds true for Russian Circles as a trio holds true for their professional touring regimen: “We have limitations, and limitations are our strengths.”
That clarity about the road ahead shows up in Sullivan’s answer to a question I ask about the next milestones he envisions for himself and the band once Nine is in the rearview mirror of their tour van. He describes his goal as being “not so much a guitarist, but a musician: write better music, keep going.” He has no desire to breeze past Nine‘s music, but he and the band “also want to keep evolving”. “I’m a firm believer in educating yourself, learning more; you don’t have to apply it always, but you never know when it’ll make its way in by osmosis. Take in a bunch of music and push your boundaries every way. I know what I like and don’t like, so I trust that, but you need to be an educated musician to write great music.”
Sullivan’s words near the end of our conversation would go some way toward helping other artists build something with the longevity of Russian Circles, two decades, nine releases, and countless tour dates into a musical life: “A lot of it is head and heart: expression is the name of the game. Are you making someone feel something? I like to build suspense, build tension and release it. The human element of music is what I appreciate, and that’s expression.”