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 catch up on the loud and heavy from June 2026.

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If we had to wait this many years for Converge to come back with their full-throttled, twisted attack, at least they’re coming back hard. Hum of Hurt is their second release of the year, following the ferocious AOTY contender Love Is Not Enough. Far from a collection of leftovers or b-sides, songs like opening track “Slip the Noose” or the throbbing “It’s Not Up to Us” are filled with enough dizzying riffs to leave you bruised by the spill of ideas coming out of the band. MVP? Nate Newton’s phenomenal bass tone. The opening of “Dream Debris” is what I want playing at my funeral procession when the time inevitably comes.

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If you thought it was impossible for Connecticut’s Fires in the Distance to get even more opulent and lush, you probably haven’t listened to Circadian Promise yet. I was bowled over by my introduction to the band with 2023’s Air Not Meant For Us and, fully ready for another dose of the same, instead was treated to a more nuanced, regal, and majestic album. Clean vocals and pristine guitar melodies reinforce the heavier moments of solemn titles like “Of Radiance and Levitation” and the lovely “To You, Author of My Fade.” Never has finding the grace in the maelstrom been so satisfying.

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Small Stone Records Co is fast becoming one of my essential labels—I haven’t been disappointed by a release yet, and the third album from Spain’s Green Desert Water is no exception. There’s more of a late ’90s, early ’00s vibe here than what you typically find in modern “stoner” sound, and the trio (yup, another point for my favorite band configuration) leverages those extra minutes to really let the listener hear how drums, bass, and guitar interact. Eerie Meadows has buckets of melody as well, and I can hear more than a little of Chris Robinson’s swagger and soul in Kike Sanchís’s voice. You put some Black Crowes soul in your stoner rock, and I’m there.

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No, your eyes (and ears) aren’t deceiving you. After almost a decade, Junius returns with Sotera, and while the crushing post-punk gothic is still panting and slobbering, there’s a crushing menace that peppers opener “Disciple” and more somber cuts like “Darkwater” in a way that parts some of the sadness in favor of a seething anger. More a grower than the show-er the previous album was, I’m still finding small intricacies and nuances (the way the bass slithers on “Serpent,” for example) that bring me back time and again.

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When I first got back into the world of heavy music in the ’00s, one of the first examples of shoegaze invading metal I came across was Klimt 1918 and their stunningly-titled Just in Case We’ll Never Meet Again (Soundtrack for the Cassette Generation). Almost 20 years later, not much has changed—Klimt 1918 still trades in lush, hazy decadence. Àmor is lush, hot, hazy, and sexy, a paean to carnal pleasures and affairs of the heart conceived in the cold isolation of lockdown. Some of the best production you’ll hear in 2026 can be heard on the nostalgia trip that is “Aventine.”

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Another label I’ve come to cherish is Karisma out of Norway—they’re home to some of the most innovative and progressive rock (not metal) acts going right now, and Liminal Sky is a great example of some of the left-field stuff the label specializes in. All Tomorrow’s Darkness more than just references the classic Cale period of the Velvet Underground; it luxuriates in its depressive, Morrissey-esque odes to despair. Any similarities to the current iteration of Ulver are not coincidental—almost everyone from Ulver (or what constitutes them now) makes an appearance, including Garm on the gorgeous “A Solitary Future.” But it’s the core duo of Jaime Gomez Arellano and Daniel Knight, along with lyricist/guest vocalist Mat McNerney, that really makes Liminal Sky something to check out…quickly.

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You’d think after this Mork the market would’ve been cornered, but no; we’ve got Morks under various spellings sprouting up like weeds. We’ve got Morke, we’ve got some Morks up in Colombia and Brazil, and we’ve got Mork, the Norwegian black metal persona created by Thomas Eriksen with about eight releases in the past 13 years. Monolitt doesn’t stray from the path—this is killer pristine thrash black metal that sounds exactly like you’d expect from that cover. And I kinda love it? No idea what the man is talking about lyrically—I’ll assume bangers like “Under Nekten Av Verden” and “Torden” are concerned with the usual culprits: Christianity, Satanism, how evil and dark everything is…I don’t know—all I know is the music kicks all kinds of ass and this is listed on their Metal Archives page:

Despite the resemblance, Mork is not derived from Mørk, which is the Norwegian word for “Dark”. Mork only stands for Mork.

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I’d never heard of Okay You Win before their vinyl arrived at my door (thank you, Blues Funeral Recordings and your Postwax series), but the album art for their debut End of Days immediately won me over. Okay, YOU win. It’s Blues Funeral, and I’ve raved about them enough that you know what to expect at this point: a band that revels in melody and groove, striving for apex stoner rock and succeeding, thanks in large part to some great guitar tones and ridiculously catchy vocals. Check out “Smoke” and get yourself hooked like I did.

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Uh…Vanden Plas has an incredible last album. This apparently is the second in a series of acoustic re-recordings. Make of it what you will.

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Are we finally back on track? Who knows! 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 time, keep it heavy…keep it safe.

— Chris