Since I insinuated in the "now playing" thread that Geneva is their least celebrated record, only to have a bunch of people mention to tell me it's their favourite, I'd like to get this settled for once. It's certainly the one with the lowest average rating here on the site at a 2.89, the penultimate place being Memorial at 3.49.

For the record I'm going for Empros, perhaps because it illustrates the most what I like about Russian Circles next to other "post-metal" groups: Instead of sludge metal's aesthetics used to create closer to dark ambient or industrial in character, they take their cues from more traditional 1980s heavy metal and then use that riffing style within the context of "soundscape" composition. Here the heavier sections are almost thrashy in character in how hard of a metallic edge the riffing has, it's just phrased a different way. The songwriting's also less "riff-slideshow" with more emphasis on building up and transitioning between different sections in a well-defined narrative structure based on tension-and-release. (I don't know that much about music theory so my explanation probably sounds like gibberish)

Oh yeah, and it has by far my favourite cover art in RC's discography.

Station has always been my go-to. It probably isn't their technical best, but it is definitely my favorite.

Toaster Mantis wrote: Huh. So far it looks like there's no real consensus. Strange.

Who will break the tie? Find out next on Russian Circles after this brief commercial break, only on ProgArchives.

I'm a sucker for the debut.

Well, my prediction was so wrong, it hurts

Enter is definitely my fave

but they are all good