Written by:	Abattoir
Published:	June 18, 2023
Event:	Cult Of Luna & Russian Circles: European Tour 2023
Location:	Kino Siska, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Post-metal as a genre has been evolving steadily throughout the last two decades with high-quality and diverse releases, justifiably becoming one of the vital branches on the "metal music tree". To form this unbreakable and stable backbone of the genre, we can undoubtedly be grateful for the essential contributions of bands like Cult Of Luna and Russian Circles. And having these two ensembles on the same touring bill? Well, for me it was almost a necessity not to miss these acts that are driving forces of the genre.

This gig was the second time I’d seen each band live. I saw Russian Circles back in 2015 together with Helen Money, and Cult Of Luna towards the end of my massive touring spree in 2019 (with Brutus (BEL) and Marissa Nadler as support). Both occasions represented an intimately extraordinary experience. I guess for me, lots of metal/rock/hardcore music connected to the "post-" prefix extracts strong emotions (especially live). Of course, it’s not meant by default, as a certain level of quality as well as performance execution has to be reached. The Swedish six-piece and Chicago-based trio utilized these shows to promote their latest album releases, The Long Road North and Gnosis. Not their best ones to date, but still capable of maintaining stability in terms of being creative enough and well-produced.


RUSSIAN CIRCLES

In front of a respectable number of attendees, amounting to around two-thirds of the full-venue capacity, Russian Circles took over the stage first. Comparing them to the following massive line-up of Cult Of Luna, the Chicago three-piece appeared a bit lonesome up there. Jokes aside, the band started off with two tracks from their aforementioned latest record, "Betrayal" and "Conduit". And even though performing in the minority, a very talented Russian Circles, with guitar master Mike Sullivan leading the way, was able to provide a massive sound through those speakers. Despite touring together with the Swedish masters, it’s crystal clear that they’ve strengthened their base of supporters since I saw them for the first time in 2015. I guess one of the rare things I could complain about, unfortunately, is that their set was insufficiently extensive to squeeze in a track or two from any of their first three studio albums: Enter, Station, and my favourite one Geneva. Nonetheless, leaving my nitpicking aside, Russian Circles left an impact as a respectable performers that bring along a boundless energy despite being "barely noticed" on the stage.






CULT OF LUNA

Well, talking about boundless energy and heavy, striking, mid-tempo metal music, there is a bunch of serious guys from the far north of the Europe who represent their masterful craft to the audiences worldwide in a very confident and sovereign manner. Comparing to their predecessors, Cult Of Luna basically filled up almost every corner of the relatively big stage, making a strong impression just by appearing on it with two drum sets/drummers, a keyboardist, a bassist, a guitarist, and the band’s mastermind/frontman, Johannes Persson: a humble, incommunicative (in between the songs) group of musicians who would rather leave the instruments to do the heavy talking. I must point out that I was, once again, overwhelmed with the performance of the drummers. Simply fucking insane. When hearing it live, the effect and contribution to the whole sound is immense. The foundations at its best. If I recall correctly, this is (only) the second band that I’ve seen live with two drummers/drum sets. The first one were Kylesa back in 2014. Clearly, this is not a common thing for live appearances. As expected, the majority of the band’s set presented the songs of their latest record, The Long Road North. I was glad they also decided to include a song from the Salvation record, the masterful track "Echoes". I have to admit, yet not complain of course, that I did not expect such a long set, which lasted around 100-110 minutes. A whole lot of great live music to consume. Joyful times.