khazaddum

Best of 2017: Some stuff Dan liked this year!

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9C 2017 EOY Header Image

Hey y’all, it’s been a minute! More accurately, it’s been about 221,000! Over the last four months, when I haven’t been watching the world rapidly start to resemble a toilet overflowing with diarrhea, I’ve been slaving away at my first semester of nursing school. Which has meant that finally, after a solid 2-3 years in a row of telling myself, “I’m gonna listen to less music this year,” I actually did listen to less music this year! My best estimate is…probably 165 albums? Maybe 170? Still a bunch, but down more than a hundred from each of the last couple of years. MISSION [SORTA] ACCOMPLISHED.

On the other hand, this puts me in something of an odd position when it comes to picking my “Best of 2017.” I didn’t listen to as much music. I deleted my Twitter and reduced my overall social media presence by, conservatively, 75% — which, by the way, was a fucking AMAZING life decision that I recommend all of you try — so I had neither a steady stream of albums-you-must-hear-or-you-will-be-shunned crossing my radar screen, nor the urge to seek out even more obscure albums that I could shun others for not having heard. Oh, and also, most of my favorite albums this year were from outside the metal genre. Me putting this list together and claiming it to be THE BEST OF 2017 would be a little delusional.

So, that’s why I’m not doing that. Okay fine, I’ve made a list and ordered it — alphabetically, because EAT IT, BIG RANKINGS — but that’s it. This is just some stuff I listened to and happened to really enjoy this year. Authoritativeness be damned. (Or left for the folks over at Last Rites.) Let’s jump in.

A note before beginning:

This list is going to focus on the metal portion of this year’s listening. (And perhaps, in some cases, the metal-adjacent.) So, even though Ulver put out my favorite album of the year in any genre with The Assassination of Julius Caesar, you’re not going to see that thing in this post. Same with Anathema. Same with…I dunno, Steven Wilson, or The War on Drugs, or other contributions from pretty-blatantly-not-metal artists. If time permits, I’ll do a year-end Rainbows in the Dark recap. (Maybe.) But this is my metal list, and it shall be kept metal. Now, all that said…

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The Nine Circles Playlist Vol. 16 (11.6.2017)

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Greetings, all. This morning we are pleased to offer our first playlist of November. It’s hard to believe we are in the final two months of the year, but we are. So you can certainly expect to start seeing some evidence of 2017 album revisits as we gear up for the end of the year. Or maybe I’m just speaking for myself. No matter, it’s a Monday morning following a weekend in which I was annihilated by Bell Witch and Primitive Man, so I’m going to quickly remind you to check out/subscribe to our YouTube channel and then leave you to it… Continue reading →

Initial Descent: August 13 – 19, 2017

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the majestic chris voss as necrolytic goat converter
Necrolytic Goat Converter

Not sure about you but all this solar eclipse talk is getting old. For the past two to three weeks it’s been all the rage. So, solar eclipse Monday, check it or not. I’ve heard not to look at it unless you want your eyes to pull a Scanners and explode. Ah yes, plenty of new metal to be heard and we have a full plate for you here on Initial Descent. Leading us off this week is our very own Chris Voss and his multi-faceted black metal project Necrolytic Goat Converter with the insanely good and extremely robust Isolated Evolution. Be sure to head inside, listen and SUPPORT! Next up is another wicked good black metal album, Heretical Wisdom, from Void Ritual — Dan Jackson has done a hell of a job on this album so be sure to check it out, you’ll be glad you did. Next up is the debut, Sinister Totem, from Finland’s Shaman Ritual and their combination of tribalistic death metal and jarring black metal will be a long standing favorite here. Closing out the opening spots is Khazzadum with their Tolkien inspired death metal on Plagues Upon Arda — whether you’re into Tolkien or not this is a great album. We’re only four albums in and the end of year contenders are strong but, as always, we have so much more waiting for you inside so go and explore… Continue reading →

Ride to Ruin: “Plagues Upon Arda” and a Conversation With Khazzadum’s Luka Djordjevic

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Khazaddum - Plagues Upon Arda

Metal Archives’ database lists 174 Tolkien-inspired acts. One-hundred and seventy-four. Sub-genres range from traditional power metal to atmospheric black metal and beyond. So if you said heavy music may not need any more Tolkien worship, you’d be forgiven, but you’d also be wrong. In August, Wisconsin’s Khazaddum will self-release their debut full-length, Plagues Upon Arda. As a fan of both Khazaddum and JRR Tolkien, I’m excited to say the new record is a solid, meaty effort, marked by significant improvement over their (also really enjoyable) 2015 EP, In Dwarven Halls. This is a fantastic first full-length, and Plagues Upon Arda feels like an engrossing, if still somewhat cursory, study of the line that separates the band’s musical delivery from the literature that inspires its lyrical material. Continue reading →