Best of 2019: Chris’s List

Best of 2019

Fourth verse, same as the first?  Or second, or third for that matter?

This is my fourth End of Year List for Nine Circles, and the more the music changes, the more the sentiment stays the same.  With each new dance partner our hands clasp; our eyes lock and I see and hear and ask the same thing:  What does this do for me?  What does it mean?  Why this, and not something else?

I tried to spend this year answering those questions, particularly the last one.  In a year where I finally acknowledged that – while still important and cherished – metal was no longer the driving musical force in my life, I wanted to understand why the metal that I was drawn to impacted me.  What was it about the way this riff, or that vocal line, or that lyric touched me in a way maybe some other song, track, or album didn’t? Continue reading

“What Did They Say?” Early 2019 Faves From the June AOTM Episode

angry abbath

Did you listen to the June Album of the Month podcast episode?  Did you do the homework?  Did you think we would leave you hanging?  Fear not, for below you will find a quick list (with links to boot!) of all the albums mentioned by the Nine Circles crew as early 2019 favorites.  Dive in, take a listen, and let us know what else is killing you so far this year.

*Note: Abbath isn’t actually in this list.  That is an oversight, because I’ve been loving Outstrider.  But any chance to post a picture of Abbath can’t be passed up, so… Continue reading

Nine Circles ov…2019: A Mid-Year Report

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Anyone feel oppressed by the ridiculous heat blasting through the Northeast?  It almost makes you want to take a month off of writing for a website.  I kid, but in truth I needed some time because the amount of quality metal that has been coming out this year has been INSANE.  Label faves like Season of Mist and Gilead have been routinely hitting it out of the park, but great music has been crawling out of every nook and cranny, and it’s dizzying to be caught up in the middle of it.  I had a list of about 14 I wanted to throw on here, but in keeping with the nature of the column I stuck to nine, all released this year before 7/1, and all on Bandcamp, because dammit let’s support artists with dollars, not fractions of pennies (plus it makes the formatting nice).

So here’s a glimpse of where my head is currently at.  We’ll see where these land come end of year, but right now they’re red hot and in constant rotation in my ears.  Onward. Continue reading