LIVE REVIEW: RUSSIAN CIRCLES @ VARIETY PLAYHOUSE, ATLANTA, GA – OCTOBER 10, 2026

Instrumental music has a particular kind of freedom. Without lyrics telling you what to feel, the music leaves room for your own interpretation.  At Variety Playhouse, Pelican and Russian Circles demonstrated two very different ways of creating that experience.

Both bands have spent roughly 25 years building their own worlds through sound. Yet, despite sharing a musical territory, they took the audience in distinctly different directions.

Pelican opened with “Gulch,” immediately drawing the room into their heavy, atmospheric sound. Colored lights cut through thick fog, while moving patterns across the backdrop created a cinematic atmosphere. It felt less like watching a band on a stage and more like stepping into a scene from a dark, beautiful dream.

The darkness was there, but Pelican’s music never felt consumed by it. There was melody running through the heaviness, giving the music an emotional center. The guitars of Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec seemed to tell a story without needing words, building melodies that unfolded naturally rather than demanding an immediate response.

Bryan Herweg’s bass and Larry Herweg’s drumming gave those melodies their foundation. The heavier passages had real weight, but there was room to breathe between the movements. Repetition became meditative, and the gradual shifts in the music invited you to settle into it.

Pelican’s sound felt intimate in a way that surprised me. It didn’t force an emotion onto the audience; it created space for one to emerge. There was darkness, certainly, but also beauty, reflection, and the sense that the music was taking you somewhere rather than simply overwhelming you.

Before the final song, “Wandering Mind,” Pelican’s guitarist addressed the audience. He spoke about both bands having been around for approximately 25 years, expressing gratitude for still being able to play and share music with people. He described music as a way of sharing emotions and finding catharsis together as a community.

Then came the warning: “Face-melting set. You have been warned.”

It was a warm, human moment that brought the evening’s larger meaning into focus. After so much communication through sound alone, a few spoken words reminded everyone why these musicians continue to do this, and why people keep showing up.

Russian Circles: Surrendering to the Rhythm

Russian Circles created a much darker and more relentless experience. They opened with “Arletta,” followed by “Seventh Seal,” and from the beginning, the atmosphere felt heavier and more imposing.

The lighting was stripped down but sophisticated: strobes, intersecting beams, and carefully positioned lights that cut through even more fog. The drummer stood at the center of this shifting visual landscape, with the beams creating sharp, dramatic shapes around the musicians. Everything felt edgy and deliberate, as if the stage itself were part of the instrument.

And then there was the sound.

Russian Circles didn’t simply play heavy music; they made heaviness feel physical. The percussion drove everything forward, while the bass and guitar built layers of tension and momentum. The music could feel almost tribal, with rhythms that seemed to take hold of the room. There were melodies within it, but unlike Pelican, Russian Circles made the darkness and the rhythmic force feel dominant.

The hypnotic quality came from the way patterns repeated, shifted, and intensified. You could feel yourself being carried along, especially when the band hit those enormous, driving passages. By the time “Empath” arrived, the music seemed to pull the audience into a shared pulse. People rocked together, caught in the same current, not simply watching the performance, but physically responding to it.

Russian Circles didn’t say a word throughout the set. They didn’t need to. The music did all the talking, and the final stretch toward “Gnosis” felt like a sustained release of pressure. The intensity never needed an explanation or a break in the atmosphere.

Two Different Journeys

What made this pairing so effective was not how similar the bands were, but how differently they approached the same emotional territory.

Pelican offered a journey inward, using melody and atmosphere to make darkness feel expansive, contemplative, and almost transcendent. Russian Circles took that darkness somewhere more consuming, where rhythm and sheer intensity could carry you into a hypnotic, almost trance-like state.

I’m always looking for the moment when sound, light, and movement become something more than the sum of their parts. That happened throughout the night, in two very different ways.

Neither band needed a vocalist to explain what their music meant. They trusted the audience to feel it for themselves. And at Variety Playhouse, that was more than enough.

Russian Circles Photo Gallery

Pelican Photo Gallery

Setlist

• Arletta
• Seventh Seal
• E2
• Conduit
• Deficit
• Harper Lewis
• Geneva
• Eluvial
• Youngblood
• Empath
• Gnosis

Watch

Tour Poster

Follow

Upcoming Shows

More live coverage from No Flash Needed

Live photography by Aleksandra Anderberg for No Flash Needed. © 2026 No Flash Needed. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission.