moon tooth

Nine Circles ov…2019: A Mid-Year Report

Chris2 Comments

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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 →

The Nine Circles Playlist Vol. 81 (05.25.2019)

VincentLeave a comment

playlist - mixtape

Welcome friends to another edition of our love letter to you in audio format.  Or maybe that’s a little forward.  Consider it a “thanks for being here with us” present.  We’ve got a host of good stuff for you today spanning all kinds of genres from video game soundtracks to that new Rammstein everyone’s all agog for.  There’s bound to be something for you in here, so dive in and take a look.

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– Vincent

The Nine Circles Playlist Vol. 78 (05.04.2019)

VincentLeave a comment

playlist - mixtape

This is one of those weeks where I sincerely hope you all are doing better than I am.  As you can probably tell by my absence in our Friday column, I am laid up with all manner of plague, illness, and devilry this week.  The one saving grace has been a barrage of good music, both new and old.  The trifecta of new Gilead Media releases have all had their first tracks released, a rip-roaring new single dropped from my hometown heroes Immortal Bird, a stunning new collab between Full of Hell and Lingua Ignota, and the 30th birthday of The Cure’s Disintegration reminded me just what a masterpiece that album truly is.  These things have been carrying me through the week on their shoulders, and I’ll let them speak for themselves in our mixtape playlist below.  Now, to keep watching Diners, Drive-In’s, and Dives to remember a time when solid food was an option for me…

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– Vincent

The Nine Circles Playlist Vol. 74 (04.06.2019)

VincentLeave a comment

playlist - mixtape

Like Stephen Tyler said, ‘I’m back in the saddle again.’  Thanks to Josh for once again picking up this column while I was off on my sojourn to the Pacific Northwest.  I fought no demon hordes in my tenure there (although I did steal a couple souls…), just a lot of hiking, sightseeing, and stuffing my face with doughnuts and beer.  As all good vacations should be.  And now, back to business.  We have a ton of good tunes for you on this week’s playlist, so dive right in and see what’s been running through our collective headphones lately.

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– Vincent

Initial Descent: March 24 – 30, 2019

Josh1 Comment
Moon Tooth
Moon Tooth

Had an interesting and funny conversation amongst the staff last week (our water cooler conversations are always golden) regarding tech death versus technical death metal which led into the myriad of varying genre tags. Out of nowhere came “I consider Judas Priest heavy metal, all else is just metal” which is accurate and great and made me roar with laughter – score. Really, it is that simple if you think about it…and then it’s not, everyone wants to know what they’re getting into up front. Either way, get into what this week has to offer.

To say I’ve been carried away by Moon Tooth’s Crux is the understatement of the year – it’s rock, it’s metal but most of all it’s MEMORABLE which is something we don’t get enough of these days so by all means, get yourself a copy STAT. Next up is the debut, Something Wicked Marches In, from Vltimas and I knew to expect a pummeling mixture of death and black metal based on the membership here but I didn’t count on this thing being as addictive as it is. Sliding into some nastier territory is Triumvir Foul with their blend of bestial black, death, and noise on Urine of Abomination, definitely drink this one in folks. Last up top is the third full length, Departed Souls, from Boston’s Magic Circle who show that a four year gap doesn’t mean a thing when a band can churn out doomy heavy metal as good as this, another MUST own so do that.

Those four could be the entire week but ALAS, there’s much more. Get in there with all the grind, death, core, post, black, rock, atmospheric, symphonic, heavy, power, instru-metal…I could go on for days. But I won’t. Continue reading →