“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

On 2019’s Blood Year, post-rock trio Russian Circles made some of the heaviest music of their lives. However, behind the scenes, guitarist Mike Sullivan was struggling to play through chronic hand pain. He tells Prog about his recovery – and how new album Gnosis contains his band’s loudest and most intricate work to date.

Matt Mills

From the outside looking in, Russian Circles’ seventh studio album, Blood Year, was a rapturous moment. The trio had spent 15 years at the pinnacle of the post-rock genre by the time it came out in August 2019, and it both honoured their time-tested conventions – looping riffs, fragile melodies, crescendoing song structures – and pushed them into new realms of angular prog metal. Plus, they played ArcTanGent and toured countries as far flung as Japan off the back of it. For any other band, Blood Year would be a symbol of triumph. However, guitarist Mike Sullivan is far from jubilant when reflecting on it. “It’s not my favourite record of ours,” he tells Prog over Zoom. “I don’t know if I should say that. Usually, when you release a…

You're reading a preview of

Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 137

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.