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Nine Circles ov…More Recent Albums I Only Have Time to Review in One Sentence

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9C one sentence reviews

Well, we’re here again.  Another deadline looming and another herculean pile of promos and new releases to get through.  Gotta have an opinion on it all, man!  Gotta get your view HEARD on the Net of Inter, the tangled web of social media that serves as the roaring voice of the DISCERNING MASS!  Nuance?  Never heard of it!  Just shout AS LOUD AS YOU CAN ABOUT WHATEVER HALF-FORMED THOUGHT YOU HAVE IN YOUR BRILLIANT HEAD SO EVERYONE KNOWS YOU WERE FIRST! YOU WERE THERE AT THE BEGINNING! NO ONE CAN FOOL YOU!

What the hell…let’s join the Body Eclectic and get our malnourished and quivering need for acceptance and acknowledgement out there.  And since considered thinking is at a premium, let’s keep this edition of Nine Circles ov snappy once again with one-sentence summaries of nine recent releases. Continue reading →

Best of 2017: Chris’s List

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9C 2017 EOY Header Image

And here we are.  A few more pages of the book before it closes.

Two thousand and seventeen years after we decided to start again at zero it feels like a reset is needed more than ever.  And this doesn’t even take into consideration the collective chaos and suppurating hate that seemingly fills the space between the molecules in our media, our politics, and our increasingly hostile behavior toward each other.  That poison surrounds but has yet to work its way into my bloodstream.  It’s a selfish ask, entirely due to my own weaknesses, insecurities and inability to take the steps needed to be just a little better each day: as a husband, a father, a writer, a musician, but most of all as a human being.  It’s been a challenging year, and I have a long road ahead if I want to keep on having challenging years, let alone any years.

More than ever it was music that kept my head above water, allowed a glimmer of land to guide me ashore.   Continue reading →

Album Review: Suicide Wraith, Necrolytic Goat Converter, Uncanny Reality – “Shades of Sorrow”

Vincent2 Comments

blackened death suicide wraith necrolytic goat converter uncanny reality shades of sorrow

I love split releases.  Whether its similar bands playing off of each others’ strengths or two totally different bands going toe-to-toe, there is a sense of community and camaraderie that makes split releases a joy to listen to.  Plus it just feels like you’re getting more bang for your buck, right?  Today, I have the pleasure of talking about Shades of Sorrow, a split that certainly delivers on the “bang,” a three-way offering of depressive black metal from the UK’s Blackened Death Records featuring Suicide Wraith, Uncanny Reality, and our very own Necrolytic Goat Converter.   Continue reading →

Nine Circles ov… “Isolated Evolution” Influences

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isolated evolution nine circles ov header

So, besides championing the music I love to the masses here at Nine Circles, I also bash a bunch of instruments together under the perhaps ill-conceived name Necrolytic Goat Converter.  I mention this for two reasons: 1) so it doesn’t feel like it’s coming out of nowhere when I mention my new album Isolated Evolution comes out August 18 and you can pre-order it here, and 2) one of the things that often gets mentioned in both reviews and interviews for ANY band or album is influences.  Drawing comparisons and tracing lines to other music is par for the course when it comes to reviewing albums – heck, we do it ourselves here all the time.

So, since it’s been asked of me more than once and it gives me the chance to briefly wax poetic on some of the music I love, this edition of Nine Circles ov… highlights some of the specific songs and bands that served as a foundation upon which I constructed the album.  Which I will again gladly point out you can pre-order using the link above.  That being said, let’s dig in…   Continue reading →

Nine Circles ov…My (unlistened to) Bandcamp Collection

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Hello. My name is Chris, and I have a problem.

I started using Bandcamp about 2 years ago. At first it was innocent: maybe an album here or there I read about in Decibel but couldn’t find on a streaming service. Occasioanlly a compilation or anthology I heard about from Henry Rollins’s amazing weekly radio show on KCRW. It was fun, it was innocent, and most importantly, no one was getting hurt. And then, in January of 2016, someone had the bright idea to start this #metalbandcampgiftclub thing and everything just kind of went out the window. At first it was just giving, you know? What’s wrong with giving? But then I started getting, too. And it got harder to just give, right? Because maybe you wanted that album too, you see? And it just spiraled and skyrocketed and every other terrible metaphor you can think of to say things, well…got out of hand.

Seriously, Bandcamp is a great service for both fans and artists. And when I sat down to think about what to write for this week’s Nine Circles ov… I realized I had all this great music I hadn’t listened to yet, so why not pick a few highlights and share ’em here with the fine Nine Circles readership. I’ll try to remember the whys and wherefores, you just check out some great metal.   Continue reading →