Welcome to another exciting edition of our weekly mixtape series. On deck for today: the new single from Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle’s collaborative album, one of my favorite Lantlôs songs, and some new Deftones for good measure. All this and more at the link below.
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– Vincent
Not sure how much worse 2020 can get but, tomorrow is coming. So, there’s that. New metal this week kicks off with the bearded savages known as Allfather who have an EP up for grabs with two killer new tracks and some killer live cuts from their past—-this freaking rips so get on it. Cult of Lilith chart some untread progressive death metal waters on their excellent full length debut, supergroup Cobra Spell offer up a blazing EP of sleazy, shredding (think Sunset Strip in the 80s) heavy metal, and progressive metallers Oceans of Slumber return with their fourth full length. Dive in, grab some metal, and buckle up for who knows what the hell is coming next.
We’re going to keep things short and sweet today. Normally I’d be more wordy in these things, but I’m dead tired today. Last night (as of this writing) I caught the LA date of the Primitive Man & Ulthar mini-tour. It was an insanely cool show; it was my first time seeing Ulthar and they did not disappoint in the slightest, and the songs from Primitive Man’s upcoming split with Hell (more on that from yours truly later on down the line) sound uglier and more heavy than getting an anvil dropped on your face. Local support from grind/powerviolence crew Whelm and doomy death metal purveyors Teeth rounded out the night in fine form. All in all a great night, but getting home later than my Old Man Body can handle on a weeknight isn’t doing me any favors today.
Maybe that wasn’t as short as I had expected. Oh well. Time to let the music speak for itself. Catch you next time.
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– Vincent
I had a plan in January. The same plan I have every January: to only document the albums that strike a major chord in one way or another. Yet, here we sit in December and I’m debating on at least one or two of my locked list and mourning those who fell off. Don’t take ‘fell off’ as a knock either. It simply means there was no shortage of amazing albums this year and well, I just enjoy the torture of whittling away on my favorites (not).
I’ve spoken at length about how important music is for life in general and how important it is for me as someone that had a finger on the play button for nearly all 8,760 hours that made up this year. EOY lists, I love them – always have and always will. It’s a chance to purge all the best and move on to yet another cycle into the unknown. Fire walk with me through the albums that hit home the hardest… Continue reading
What does music do for you?
In the end, it’s the only question that matters. An admittedly hard question to hear, what with the screaming of every opinion in every corner of the internet, but in the end when you step away from the noise and muck of screen shouting and scene guarding it’s your opinion in the end. Every year that I’ve written an end of year list for Nine Circles it’s been a variation of the same theme: when we write about music, we’re writing about ourselves. What matters is what the music does to you, and only for you.
But what’s the point, if you’re really only writing for yourself? Continue reading
Nine Circles 