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 correct the second third fourth egregious error of missing a month and dive into this edition of Nine Circles ov… and catch up on the loud and heavy from July AND August 2026.

(seriously…July I was away most of the month and August…well, August I have no excuse for being a week late. Apologies and forgiveness appreciated in advance!)

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The latest from Mark Sugar and Black Sites by all rights should have been a full review: after a solid but ultimately forgettable effort in The Promised Land?, the band tighten their attack and bring some of the edge back on For Eternity. The shades of gothic rock blend with NWOBHM and the trad resurgence to make tracks like “When It Calls” and “Giving Up the Ghost” monster anthems as well as gritty rockers acknowledging without wallowing in the past.

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After her collaboration with Converge and the dark industrial menace of 2024’s She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, I’ve given up and fallen hard for Chelsea Wolfe. Never one to rest in one place for long, Wolfe has lifted some of that density on The Dark, but that lightness affords Wolfe the opportunity to let her dynamic voice carry the intensity on opening song “Cold” even as “Seethe” brings the synths back in a pulsing urgency while bricked distortion colors the ominous “Turn The Key.” Spectacularly foreboding even as Wolfe beckons you inside…

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Speaking of ties to Converge…I get enormous Kurt Ballou vibes listening to “Edge of Entropy,” my formal introduction to Dead Tired. The Hamilton, Ontario band don’t simply replicate that formula (who can?); instead they settle in alongside the technicality of thrash, giving the 39 minutes of Hornets of Fall a ripping ferociousness thanks to guitarist/producer Marco Bressette. Songs like “False Populist” highlight this intentional lightness, allowing the instruments to slice like knives instead of bludgeon like sledgehammers.

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How many great albums will it take before Flotsam and Jetsam are known as more than “that thrash band Jason Newsted was in before Metallica”? Because Rats in the Temple is the third album in a row of absolutely relentless heavy metal from the band. A band who already banged out TWO bona fide classics in the ’80s and could easily have rested on their laurels. Instead, the band are giving Judas Priest a run for their money as one of the most vital-sounding legacy acts out there. I’m not sure it beats 2021’s Blood in the Water yet, but it’s close.

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Yes, another Japanese power metal band has entered my life besides Lovebites, who also released a killer album this year. But Galneryus take all the technicality and riffage to a much more dramatic (some say operatic) end. A Cry From the Sky Above has more raw bite in the guitars than before: “Let No Time Decay” rushes up abruptly, all huffing breath and bared teeth before those very identifiable Japanese melodies and pop structures rear their heads. It always feels genuine, and there are musical ideas in here that more than a few death and black metal players would cry and blush at, and would try to incorporate into their own tunes.

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Oh, shocker: another riff-heavy stoner rock album from Small Stone Records Co. North Carolina’s Irata were one of the earlier bands to hook me on the sound with their previous slab, 2019’s Tower. Human may be seven years in the coming, but the sinewy groove of opener “Altar” makes it as if no time has passed. “Confessions” goes even harder, reminding me why I love this genre so much: the focus is always on two things: rich, creamy riffs and righteous, anthemic choruses. Human and Irata have that in spades.

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There’s so much to unpack with the latest from one of my favorite “heavy” bands still active on the scene that a paragraph would never do it justice. I’m still absorbing what a Mastodon record without Brent even is, and to have someone with so signature a style as Kurt Ballou behind the boards is a double whammy I wasn’t expecting. Marrow Deep is so very obviously about Brent, but, like every album, the specter of death haunts the band, and so the whole Brent ordeal is compounded by the death of Brann’s mother and the destruction of Troy’s homes in the last hurricane disaster. I’ll have a more detailed review later; for now all I’ll say is this is worth your time and invites close listening.

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That “thunk” you heard is the final nail in Fates Warning’s coffin. The closest we’ll get is this ambient, occasionally rocking but mainly vaporous project from Jim Matheos and Ray Alder. I may sound like I’m slighting North Sea Echoes, but in my heart I know it’s just the whining of an old guy who wishes he could be 15 again, having his mind blown seeing the video for “Silent Cries”—this was the new guy who replaced John Arch?! Think of Disconnected-era Fates, when Ray was taking a more active role and we were getting songs like “Something From Nothing.” That’s the sense I get when I hear How to Cast a Shadow, and when the guitars kick in and Ray lets his voice rise on “Enjoy The View,” it gets so close to Fates my mind quivers in its casing.

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My favorite Brazilian progressive metal nuts are back, and if the opening moments of “Mao-Ulhado” are any indication, Celestial marks Papangu going even further out amongst the stars. I’ll leave it there—I love this record, and the only bad thing I’ll say is the lengths I’m going through trying to get the vinyl are a draaaagggggg, man.

Loving this record, and you can expect more about it over the next few months.

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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 time, keep it heavy…keep it safe.

— Chris