Russian Circles' 2022 album, Gnosis, eschews the varied terrain of their past work and bulldoze a path through the most tumultuous and harrowing territory of their sound. Gnosis was engineered and mixed by Kurt Ballou. Drums and bass were tracked at Electrical Audio in Chicago to maximize the natural room sounds of the rhythm section. Guitar and synth overdubs were conducted at God City in Salem, MA to take advantage of Ballou's vast inventory of amps and effects pedals. Despite the entirety of the album being written remotely, the songs were recorded with the full band playing together to retain the live feel of the material. Owing to the climate of the times and a new writing method, Russian Circles created their most fuming and focused work to date-an album that favors the exorcism of two years' worth of tension over the melancholy and restraint that often colored their past endeavors.
