Nine Circles

Here we are, the best day of the week. Saturday’s are full of wonder and all that trash but here on Initial Descent they are full of metal. And this week the QUANTITY returns. Diving right in, The Ominous Circle bursts onto the death metal scene with their stellar yet essential debut Appalling Ascension and I’m calling it early this album will be on year end lists. Black Metallers The Ruins of Beverast continue to amaze on their experimental and psychedelic EP Takitum Tootem!, it may have taken Beheaded five albums — and a transformation away from just brutal death metal — to do it but on Beast Incarnate the band has officially put out the best album of their career, and The Great Old Ones return with EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy which is yet another opus of black metal and doom wrapped neatly in a veil of foggy atmosphere. So yea, great week for metalheads and we still have a long list to go, after the jump. 

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The Ominous Circle – Appalling Ascension (20 Buck Spin/Osmose) – black metal [full review]

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The Ruins of Beverast – Takitum Tootem!, EP (Ván Records) – experimental black metal

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Beheaded – Beast Incarnate (Unique Leader Records) – death metal

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The Great Old Ones – EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy (Season of Mist) – black metal

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Also on tap:

Acranius – Reign of Terror (Rising Nemesis Records) – brutal death metal

Árstíðir Lífsins – Heljarkviða (Ván Records) – pagan folk black metal

Betraying the Martyrs  – Resilient (Sumerian Records) – metalcore

.bipolar. – Seven, EP (Independent) – heavy metal, modern

Cultural Warfare – Future Kill, EP (M-Theory Audio) – thrash metal

Deathless Legacy – Dance With Devils (Scarlet Records) – horror, metal

Deserted Fear – Dead Shores Rising (Century Media) – death metal

Empyrean Throne – Chaosborne (Independent) – black metal

Evil Priest – S/T, CD (Caverna Abismal Records) –  death metal

Ever Circling Wolves – Of Woe or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gloom (Cimmerian Shade Recordings) – doom metal

Fall of Carthage – The Longed-For Reckoning (MDD Records) – thrash metal

Freedom Hawk – Sunlight, Reissue (Ripple Music) – vintage rock

Heavy Baby Sea Slugs – Teenage Graveyard Party (Heavy Baby Records) – sludge, punk

Heavy Temple – Chassit (Van Records/Tridroid Records) – psychedelic doom metal

Horn – Turm am Hang (Iron Bonehead) – black metal

Hour of Penance – Cast the First Stone (Prosthetic Records) – death metal

John Garcia – The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues (Napalm Records) – acoustic stoner rock

Kjeld / Wederganger – Split, LP (Ván Records) – black metal

Kreator – Gods of Violence (Nuclear Blast) – thrash metal

Laser Dracul – S/T, Demo Reissue (Ván Records) – doom metal

Maloic – Death (Independent) –  death metal

Mustan Kuun Lapset – Saato (Inverse Records) – dark metal

Nick Oliveri – N.O. Hits At All, Vol. 1 (Heavy Psych Sounds) – stoner rock

Psychedelic Witchcraft – Magick Rites and Spells (Soulseller Records) – occult doom metal

Tragic Cause – No Restraint (Human To Dust Records) – thrash metal

Undrask – Battle Through Time (Independent) – melodic death metal

Vitriol – S/T (Hellthrasher Productions) – death metal

Wolvennest – WLVNNST (Ván Records) – doom rock [feature review]

Xandria – Theater of Dimensions (Napalm Records) – symphonic/power metal

– Josh