We here at Nine Circles have been inspired by a number of writers, and, in this case a Podcaster or two. In the near future, we will start doing full profiles for some (or all) of them, for it was those writers that inspired us to join, and water down, their craft. With that in mind, we asked a preliminary question to a bunch of writers we intend to profile. Today we bring you our final installment in this mini-profile series featuring the co-host of the Metal Sucks Podcast, Godless.

“You’re a metal writer. And if you’re receiving this question in your inbox, then you are a good metal writer. As such, people probably assume that you spend your whole day (and night because metalheads never sleep) blasting your ear drums with the sweet sounds of blast beats. But we know that’s not true. So what are you listening to that isn’t metal these days?”

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You can catch the one and only Godless (@GodlessSpeaks) on the one and only Metal Sucks Podcast. There isn’t much more to be said about this guy than what you already know. Listen to this long-running podcast (with co-host Bearded Ape, @beardedape) and support them on Patreon. Here is some not-metal music that matters.

I successfully hid my love of metal from my wife for years after we had dated and married. Considering my looks and personality give me little room for error, I felt the need to hide everything potentially objectionable from her until it was too late. Fortunately, this wasn’t too difficult because I consider myself a music fan in general, and as much of a fan of many genres as I am of metal. Art is art, and great art doesn’t always require a distortion pedal. But there are three albums that stand out in the last 10 years, more than all others.

Velvet Teen – All is Illusory Being a fan of The Velvet Teen in 2015 is kind of link being a fan of Metallica in 1988 – when you see another Velvet Teen fan, you give each other a friendly wave hello like members of a secret awesome music appreciation society. The band has existed for 15 years putting out first, three albums of inspired and unique songs, always completely different from anything they’d done before. Some fans probably got lost as they leapt from guitar-based post-punk to orchestral-emo to electro-mathcore. But after a nine-year break from recording they’ve returned with their fourth album ‘All is Illusory’, a seamless amalgamation of all that has made them great in the past, including an almost-unrivalled ability to craft perfect songs with chill-inducing crescendos and irresistible sing-along choruses. Just like Ride the Lightning-era Metallica, there is a community of Velvet Teen fans who are utterly obsessed, and I’m fortunate to be among them.

Quiet Company – We Are All Where We Belong I’ve always been a fan of concept records, and metal has it’s fair share of great ones. BTBAM’s Coma Ecliptic, Mastodon’s Leviathan, and Thought Industry’s Black Umbrella are crucial examples. WAAWWB is the greatest non-metal concept album in music history. There are songwriters who create great songs and there are songwriters who create great art. Band leader Taylor Muse is the latter because of his craftsmanship but, even more so, because of an honesty and candor in his songwriting that is amazingly rare and uncompromising. In this album, Muse documents his experience transitioning out of Christianity to agnostic atheism. “The river’s wide, and I could not swim across it, so I convinced myself I walked upon the waves.” The dude is using the Jesus myth as a metaphor for his perspective on his past irrational faith, all on top of a Beatles-meets-Tim Friese-Greene music bed. I appreciate the album because I relate to Muse’s journey, but even more so because there is no artistic expression in literature, painting, film, or elsewhere that expresses the evolution from believer to skeptic as perfectly as this. For some, the album should sit on a shelf between The God Delusion and their Cosmos DVDs but it really is more than that – truly, truly, amazing art.

Owen Beverly – Shooting the Bull Chuck and I recently spoke with Sean Reinert, formerly of Cynic, on a recent episode of The Metalsucks Podcast. His ending of that legendary band was a reminder of how their debut album, Focus, was ahead of its time. Too great to be denied, it eventually found an audience of fans and younger musicians, and the band was able to reform and create even better music to influence those bands again. Owen Beverly is America’s greatest young songwriter and his underappreciation is a national embarrassment, but time will eventually make things right. Shooting the Bull was released as a near-perfect collection of perfect songs and then re-released a year or two later with a better sequence and the addition of “Legs and Scars”, the greatest alt-country song of the 21st Century and much of the 20th. Shooting the Bull is such a perfect album there is no chance it will not be found by an adoring audience eventually, and lesser songwriters will cite him as a great influence on their lesser songs. To add to that, Beverly’s almost-perfect sophomore album ‘Amager’ proves he will again be ahead of them, ready to influence them again, just like Cynic has.

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Thanks to Godless for his time!

– Manny-O-War & Corey