Geneva - Russian Circles
Metascore
79 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. While it may seem as if Geneva is all over the musical map, the opposite is acually true--the map's just been redrawn. [Nov 2009, p.114]
  2. Russian Circles, with their instruments well-used and dynamic, leaders in their own right, guide the listener through the varying courses of each song with nary a misstep.
  3. Geneva blossoms into an evocative, inspiring album.
  4. Like many of the tracks contained therein, Geneva ends up far from where it began. But this is not a record defined by where it starts and where it finishes--it's what there is to take in on the way that counts.
  5. If you weren't already on the Russian Circles bandwagon, this is the perfect opportunity to jump on.
  6. By letting their music do all the talking, Russian Circles have told the story of their personal growth entirely in song, and it's a growth that involves all the melodic intricacy and inventive theme-and-variation play that their contemporaries have had much greater difficulty overcoming.
  7. Geneva's a record with dirt underneath its fingernails and resolute urgency at its heart, and like the place from which it hails, it's worth the bluster.
  8. Russian Circles returns with this album of sprawling instrumental songs that vacillate between churning heavy riffage and redemptive passages. [Fall 2009, p.72]
  9. Chicago instrumentalists Russian Circles arrive at neutral ground with Geneva.
  10. Ultimately, Russian Circles pummel too politely.