Culture: Russian Circles & Deafheaven at Bowery Ballroom, Manhattan

 

 (Drivebycuriosity) - What is efficiency? It`s "Russian Circles", a instrumental rock/metal band consisting just of 2 guitarists and 1 percussionist (myspace). Last Monday the 3 musicians from Chicago performed at Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan`s trendy Lower East Side and delivered a magic moment.

 "Russian Circles" served complex pieces, which started atmospheric but were building up tension and augmented then into massive walls of sound. Sometimes their music was as heavy as a neutron star. Especially the very energetic drummer created gravity waves which attacked my ears like warships from the Klingons.

I also was captured by the performance of "Deafheaven", the support group (deafheaven.tumblr). This band, which comes from San Francisco, performed a zealous metal concert. The performance of George Clarke, their vocalist, was especially exalted and feverish. His voice seemed to be a power plant which could deliver energy for thousands of homes.

Both bands showed how powerful and stimluating rock music still could be. Wow!