Too many albums, too few reviewers…that’s the problem with all the metal blogs, not just this one. What do you do? How do you get a sense of what’s out there if you’re only listening to a fraction of what’s getting released? How do you open yourself up to new music? I’ll tell you how: you jump into all the unpicked promos each month and devote a sentence or two giving a sense of what you gleaned from it.

That’s right: we’re back for another round of “The Month That Was…” so enough preambling…let’s dive into this edition of Nine Circles ov… and see what’s been blooming with the flowers (and my allergies) in April 2025.

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I’ve ridden Allegaeon hard for their innocuous, paint-by-numbers brand of technical death metal: too often the songwriting was thin to non-existent which I guess paired perfectly with a shallow thin production that left the drums sounding like a programmed afterthought. The Ossuary Lens had a lot to prove, and damn if the Denver, CO. band didn’t deliver. The production is fat and engaged, allowing drummer Jeff Saltzman a real chance to shine through. The songwriting also takes a huge leap forward, and tracks like “Driftwood” show guitarists Michael Stancel and Greg Burgess leaning into a maturity that allows their fretwork to work with the song as opposed to simply bashing against it. A huge step from sitting in a sea of imitators to rising above them.

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With the Michael Whelan-inspried artwork (it’s painted by Maegan LeMay) you’d be forgiven thinking Ancient Death are plowing the same fields as a certain legendary old school death metal band. But excepting for a dank, dripping production that really works for the music, Ego Dissolution isn’t playing the same game as Obituary. There’s a level of technicality and twisted, progressive riffing that propels songs like “Breaking the Barriers of Hope” coupled with some searing guitar solos and evil synths to lend an ominous vibe to everything the band touches on their debut full length. Things get nigh epic on closer “Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever)” and the rest of the album’s no slouch. Get in on the ground floor with these guys.

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I have no idea why, but I feel like Conan have been on hiatus forever. Makes no sense, as they’ve been fairly steadily releasing full lengths every few years along with a slew of splits, EPs, and other odds and ends. Violence Dimension sees the UK trio moving over to Heavy Psych Sounds, and it’s a perfect fit for the sludgy doom the band continues to plumb. Rumbling bottom end, squalls of feedback, and a focus on the way we are all tied together by violence whether passive or active unites the album on a string of mammoth track like opener “Foeman’s Flesh” and the 1-2 closing punch of “Ocean of Boiling Skin” and “Vortexxion” but when they get punchier on something like “Desolation Hex” they hit the pocket for me. Also there’s a song called “Total Bicep” which is awesome, so if you also forgot Conan were a thing, this is a good reminder.

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I know most of us were over the moon for Tomárúm’s sophomore album, and Ian just waxed rhapsodic over their new one here. But I’ve gotten pickier with my progressive death metal, and right now Fractal Universe is hitting me in all the ways I wanted Beyond Obsidian Euphoria to, and didn’t. I love the odd choices this French quartet makes on their fourth The Great Filters. Opener “The Void Above” has saxophone playing in between spaces and melodies a sense of real dynamics in the songwriting and playing – a wall of fretboard wankery this ain’t. Rather than bludgeon us with a wall of suffocating technicality, Fractal Universe really embrace those aspects of progressive rock I love, allowing light and heavy passages to co-exist with each other, tangling together in beautiful ways, such as the slow anthemic burn of “The Equation of Abundance” and the percussive syncopation of “Concealed”. If you’ve haven’t checked out Fractal Universe yet (Zyklonius had The Impassable Horizon on his 2021 end of year list), remedy that, especially of progressive metal is your thing.

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Oh, Tobias…what do I make of your latest Ghost offering? I am pretty unapologetic for my love of 2022’s Impera, an album I still play on the regular, but for this Nameless Ghoul Skeletá feels like the oil of 80s AOR you’ve been applying to the Ghost formula was slathered on too thick, suffocating the power of the riffs I can clearly hear on tracks like “Satanized” and “Missilia Amori” but can’t feel, you know what I mean? And while there’s nothing as silly as “Twenties” on Skeletá (seriously, why the accent on the “a”?), there’s nothing that grans me and shakes me to my core like the bridge on “Kaisarion” did or the mammoth chorus of “Spillways”. I do like the solos on “Cenotaph” but can’t stand the good boy rock riffs that surround it. “Lachryma” continues to be the strongest track, and there’s some power closing out the album with “Excelsis” but a few spins in and I’m left wondering where the fire went.

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In The Woods… have been playing the Scandinavian metal game for 30 years now, and the evolution from early classics Heart of the Ages and Omnio continues on the band’s seventh studio album Otro. Their second album with Bernt Fjellestad on vocals, things are a little heavier, the band reaching back into their black metal bag to sprinkle moments of “The Things You Shouldn’t Know” and “Come Ye Sinners” with a think venner of harshness. But the rest of Otro sticks to the somber, melodic and melancholic vibes the band have been trading in since 2016’s resurgence with Pure. I can’t help but miss former vocalist James Fogarty, who was a big draw for me. But Fjellestad continues to be a solid vocalist, especially in the harsher moments, and despite an initial coldness the album is slowing growing on me.

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It’s been over 20 years since The Lord Weird Slough Feg graced us with the heady SF concept of Traveller, so why not a sequel, or “supplement” as Mike Scalzi calls it. Even when I don’t vibe with Scalzi’s output there’s no denying the man’s vision or intent in any of his projects (he also leads Hammers of Misfortune) and on new EP Supplement 1: The Ephemeral Glades he resurrects the greatest band name of all time six years after their last full length New Organon and lays out seven ripping tracks of traditional metal that’s anything but traditional. There are spacey waves of ambience that add to some of the best sounding drums I’ve heard in 2025. Couple that with thick meaty rock riffs and a story that revolves around clones, a frozen alien planet and whatever a “Vargr” is and you have something only The Weird Lord Slough Feg could put out. But even if you don’t care about the concept, the songs here from the killer opener “Knife World” to the mighty gallop of “Ephemeral Glades” will have you stomping along all the same.

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Italy’s Messa are another band long admired but whose music (despite me adding 2018’s Feast For Water to my end of year list) too often kept me at arm’s length. That’s gone with The Spin, an album that continues to embrace the dark with shades of goth, post-punk, and rock swagger along with its doomier moments. There’s an openness and warmth to songs like “At Races” and the lovely and punishing “Immolation” and, uh…the solos, people. There are solos all over this album. Of all the albums on the catch-up list this month, Messa and The Spin is the one I’m kicking myself the most for not reviewing in full. Expect to hear more about this album later in the year.

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You see a black metal band hailing out of northern California and you think to yourself you don’t need another behold the forest Cascadian (have we retired that yet?) black metal band. Wrath of Logarius agree with you, and their debut full length Crown of Mortis reaches for icier shores with a wicked mix of brutal second-wave inspired black metal with copious amounts of d-beat death and just enough fly doom ambience to give everything a nice color (blood red, going by the cover) on cuts like “Keeper of the Spectral Legion” and “Of The Void”. Current masked black metal forest darlings Grima guest on the “The Ethereal Mist” and it’s suitably ominous and murderous. No one’s re-inventing the genre here, but Wrath of Logarius make damn sure they leave their own stamp.

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Lots of interesting things kicking off the second quarter of 2025. As always the surprises and discoveries continue to pile up, so let me know what we missed and what we should be on the lookout for.

Until next month, keep it heavy…keep it safe.

— Chris