eschatos

Welcome to the future, everyone. I spent the last day of 2021 applying beauty masks and drinking champagne with my wife and son because you know what? That shit felt NICE. Even the boy admitted it it was cool, although I suspect his favorite part was the horror of peeling the mask off like dead skin. Yes, we had Slayer playing in the background…couldn’t resist.

To kick off 2022 and the 212th edition of the Nine Circles Playlist I put on my metal playlist and hit random to see what came out, so you’re getting the year off to a brutal start with some Unanimated and Chapel of Disease, as well as some classic Katatonia. Josh comes into the year guns blazing with some Wommbath, Barghest, and Everclear before finishing up with the ripping live Corrosion of Conformity. Vincent changes the mood a bit with The Hotelier, Alcest, and King Woman before Jon comes out of the snow to go full tech death, blasting some new Allegaeon, Spawn of Possession, and Archspire. Anton continues to play the left field choices, bringing in some choice cuts from his AOTY band Code as well as tracks from Eschatos and Fleshvessel. Bringing up the rearguard this time is Buke, and as awakes he’s ready with the classic of the genre, from Ahab, Death, Manowar, Saviours, and even a little Trivium.

That’s it. We’re officially in the new year. Let’s see if we can make it better than the last two, huh?

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– Chris

nine circles ov high fidelity metal

Straight talk: it doesn’t matter how you consume music. Listen any way you want: use the earbuds that came with your phone, $1,000 studio monitors, a sound bar…whatever. If you’re enjoying it, you’re doing it right. I’m not here to tell you you’re doing it wrong. That being said, there is a certain pleasure to be derived from tweaking and upgrading, searching for the right combination that takes the music you love to the next level, shorting your synapses and inducing a synethetic delight. So after numerous discussions with our resident Finn and audiohead Zyklonius I slowly began to improve my at-home listening experience. I invested in a modest pair of planar magnetic headphones and a headphone amp (the ones above, actually: the HIFIMAN HE-400i and the Schiit Magni 3) and took my first steps into the murky world of the metal audiophile. Continue reading →