Part 1:

It feels like forever since Boston rock band RIBS released the one-two sonic punch of their Locrian Singles. That was January 2011, and since then, the pulsating quartet has been hard at work meticulously crafting their EP follow-up, Russian Blood.

Primed for explosion, the first single, “Kiss,” was released today via the promo video above, and it’s also available as a free download. The track is a slow-burning sledgehammer of a tune, taking RIBS’ murky, underwater rock sound and adding a welcome heaviness the band hinted at on previous standouts like “Brains Out” and“Please Don’t Go.”

But “Kiss” is just a taste — the entire Russian Blood record is a potent post-modern mix of layered riffs, space-shot hooks, and dizzying atmospheric sounds; it’s music for a different mindset and one that should launch the band into the national realm just as we predicted back in our Class of 2011 feature around the timeLocrian dropped.

Grab the mp3 below, and tune in to Boston Accents on Sunday, May 20 as we’ll premiere the entire Russian Blood EP and have the dapper gentlemen of RIBS hanging out on-air in the WFNX studio. That Friday, May 25, they’ll drop the record at T.T. The Bear’s Place in Cambridge on a pretty killer bill with Autochrome, the Suicide Dolls and Yoga Girls, and then RIBS head down to New York City the following night for a release party in the Dirty Apple alongside Viva Viva and Frank Smith at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly.

Let’s all make out.

Part 2:

From the very first riff of RIBS’s rumbling new single “Kiss,” it doesn’t take long for the sonic seismograph to start tracing a zigzag across your headspace. The quartet’s first release since the one-two suckerpunch of last January’s atmospheric Locrian Singles, “Kiss” is a pure growler, a sledgehammer of a tune that wedges its way into your ears and sprawls across four eerie minutes, eventually striking a low-down choral groove that only serves to momentarily stop the song’s pounding ritual. “Kiss” is the fitting first-strike single off RIBS’ new Russian Blood EP — a textured, modern hard-rock record that’s dark, meticulous, and crafted with a gunslinger’s precision. We rarely feel earthquakes here in Boston – 08.23.11, never forget – but RIBS will shake up T. T. The Bear’s next Friday, May 25, as they drip Russian Blood on a sterling rock bill alongside Connecticut rabble-rousers the Suicide Dolls and the mysterious Yoga Girls.

Tune in to Boston Accents this Sunday at 8 pm when RIBS crash the WFNX studio in Lynn.