darkthrone – Nine Circles

CANTO: Darkthrone, Drudkh, Bloodbath, and More

September 7, 2022September 7, 2022CoreyLeave a comment

I find myself weirdly into tennis these days. That, and the Champions League of course.

The most important news in my day came from Peaceville Records. Darkthrone are releasing their next full length album on October 28th, titled Astral Fortress. Pre-orders go live tomorrow here, and a preview of the album is available here.
This is fun. Corpsegrinder released an animated music video for “Bottom Dweller”. It’s pretty damn entertaining. And if you somehow managed to miss this, his debut self-titled album dropped earlier this year and it’s very much worth your time.
Bloodbath unveiled a crushing new track, titled “No God Before Me”. That’s the latest from Survival of the Sickest, their new album which drops this coming Friday through Napalm Records. I assure you, we are all very excited about it.
We’re going to close with Drudkh, who are releasing All Belong to the Night on November 11th. That will be available through Season of Mist Underground Activists, and the first single, titled “November”, can be found below.

“Ein Bier… bitte.”
– cmb

The Nine Circles Playlist Vol. 238 (7.2.2022)

July 2, 2022July 1, 2022ChrisLeave a comment

In the United States a lot of folks are celebrating Independence Day, which falls on July 4th. Myself, I’m celebrating a Monday off and an extended weekend in the woods with my family as I contemplate life, the universe, and everything, to crib from a certain Douglas Adams.

Oh, and I’m kicking off this 238th edition of the Nine Circles Playlist with an awesome band I just discovered: Kryptograf. They deal in some crazy psychedelic stoner doom rock straight out of Birmingham 1970 if you catch my drift. Great stuff. I may have also thrown in some vintage Darkthrone because I just got my limited edition white vinyl of A Blaze in the Northern Sky. Elsewhere Anton is repping Pelagic Records hard with tracks from Psychonaut and Hiroe, as well as a new cut from Conan. Vincent brings the madness with new music from Alexisonfire, Pianos Become the Teeth, Gaerea, and another cut from the fantastic new release by Inexorum. Finally Josh is going to wrap it up today with a host of great extreme music, including cuts from Werewolves, Spirit Adrift, Peelingflesh, Mongrel, and the newest single from Bloodbath that is so damn good I bumped it to the top of the playlist.

Get listening. Stay safe. See you next week.

—

– Chris

CANTO: Darkthrone, Drudkh, Abbath, and More

February 28, 2022February 28, 2022CoreyLeave a comment

I’m actually going to a concert next week, and I’m already overthinking it immensely.

We’ll start with a thing I really wish I could go to. TRVE Brewing has announced their 10th anniversary concert, which features the likes of Khemmis, Panopticon, Dreadnought, and more. Those tickets go on sale at the end of the week.
Darkthrone is celebrating the 30th anniversary of A Blaze In The Northern Sky with a fresh, limited-edition, vinyl pressing through Peaceville. 666 copies will be released on June 24th. You can order it here, but I’m sure it’s already sold out. Edit: confirmed.
Keeping this short today, and rounding out with a couple items from Season of Mist. First, we have a new track from Abbath for “The Book of Breath”. You probably don’t need a reminder, but Dread Reaver is out on March 25th.
And we’ll wrap up Monday with the new video from Ukrainian black metallers Drudkh for “The Nocturnal One”. It’s worth noting that this release was moved up on the calendar as a sign of resistance. We’re with them, and all other Ukrainians. Slava Ukraini.

“Ein Bier… bitte.”
– cmb

Best of 2021: Chris’s List

December 29, 2021December 29, 2021Chris3 Comments

The beginning is the end. Literally, in this case. I started this post with the entries for my list a few weeks ago, wrote my 1,000 word review (sorry) on my Album of the Year and concluding paragraph right before Christmas, and now here I am in the vaporous ether before the new year pondering the introduction.

And there are no words left.

I’ve wrangled with the why, trying to make sense of the music I consume and what it says, and I hit a point where trying to find an answer was…pointless. Not because it’s unimportant to know, but in the last two years the rest of the world became so much harder to deal with, life became so much harder to deal with, something in my brain went into emergency mode and just shut down the logic circuits, sending one single message over and over again:

“Stop thinking, stupid. It’s just music.”

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Nine (or so Heavily Qualified) Circles ov…2021: A Mid-Year Report

July 6, 2021July 3, 2021Chris2 Comments

Wait…so the guy who only wrote a total of 10 freakin’ reviews this year thinks he has any weight when it comes to a mid-year report? Well, uh…I guess that’s why I put the “heavily qualified” in the title of this post?

But seriously, I’ll be the first to admit that metal hasn’t really been my #1 go-to when it comes to music lately, but like everything else, what you see on the Internet never tells you the whole story. I haven’t been writing nearly as much about the genre lately, but I have been listening. Listening, and refining. Finding the things that really resonate despite the press and the push of PR, or what the pundits tell you on the 1,001 other sites out there scrambling for clicks. And what I’ve discovered is that more and more I’m coming to the sounds that drew me to the genre: thrash riffs, lots of melody, and tasty solos. So yeah: expect some old school bands putting out great records more than 30 years into their existence here. And maybe a few newer bands as well.

Is that qualified enough for ya? Then let’s dig in.

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