It’s early when Scul Hazzards open proceedings with their noisy brand of rock, but the place is already half-full and buzzing. It’s been a while since these guys were locals, playing all around Brisbane, so it’s nice to have a chance to catch them again. The band has grown even better over the last couple of years. They’re not quite as raucous as they once were, which is a shame, but they’ve gotten a lot tighter and their new tracks are excellent, all-in-all, a winning combination.

If No Anchor aren’t already a local institution, they will be soon (a seven-day straight residence at the Waiting Room can only help). Their twin bass attack creates an all-encompassing wall of sludgy doom-metal and demands the attention of the crowd. Drawing heavily from their latest release, Real Pain Supernova, the guys power through 40-odd minutes of seriously heavy music, drawing a well-deserved enthusiastic response from the crowd.

Russian Circles kick off with Harper Lewis, from 2008’s Station. Rolling beats and pulsing bassline slowly giving way to the more angular guitar tones. The song plateaus and then, as it ends, makes way for ambient drone generated by the band as they tune their instruments. It’s a great way to keep the music going and the crowd involved while dealing with retuning (Isis used a similar trick during their last tour here) and it allows them to segue smoothly into the straight-up aggression of Geneva.

The band play well tonight and drummer Dave Turncrantz is worthy of particular mention, handling the complex beats with aplomb. The Zoo also deserves a mention on this point. This is the second gig I’ve seen here in a couple of weeks (the other being Nikko, et al) where the drum-sound has been absolutely perfect, and I’d like to complement their sound crew on getting it right.

Unfortunately the remainder of the set is a bit of a mixed bag. When they are on song and pushing their tracks to their limits, Russian Circles are amazing and live up to their recorded works. The between-song ambience grows gradually longer and less interesting as the show goes on however, which really lowers the overall experience. It means that the energy and tension created by their best moments are always dissipated by the start of the next song. The gap before Station is particularly excessive. I have time to leave my side of the stage, wander up to the back, have a glass of water, have another glass of water, then get back to the other side of the stage and set up to take more photos before the next song has even started. I enjoy drone a lot, but if you’re going to run ambience for that long between songs it had better be amazing, and it wasn’t in this case.

That complaint aside, Russian Circles put on a solid performance with exemplary musicianship and are worth catching live. This time around, they didn’t quite live up to their potential, but I was still glad for the experience and would recommend any future shows to fans of the genre.

Words and photos by Sky Kirkham