Enter

After all the promotion, the interviews, the advertisements, the onesheets, the haranguing from publicists, it all boils down to one thing: does this band have it -- that impossible-to-define something that you can't explain, but instantly recognize? Even though they don't play the most accessible music -- an instrumental amalgam of punk, metal, indie-rock and even prog -- Russian Circles have it. Enter, their debut album, definitely doesn't sound like a new band clumsily over-thinking their songs, but instead it sounds like one cohesive composition in six movements. Each movement holds its breath through the intense moments, but exhales through sweeping, airy horizons that slowly collapse into dense panoplies, showcasing the band's shifting dynamics, and not just the binary code of loud/quiet. Coupled with their richly textured guitar-work, thick, growling bass lines and propulsive, polyrhythmic beats, it's an exhausting 44 minutes, yet it'll still leave listeners wanting more.