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Second Circle: Hammers of Misfortune and Arrayan Path

ChrisLeave a comment
Hammers of Misfortune - Overtaker
Arrayan Path - Thus Always to Tyrants

In Dante’s Inferno, the second circle begins the proper punishment of Hell, a place where “no thing gleams.” It is reserved for those overcome with Lust, where carnal appetites hold sway over reason. In Nine Circles, it’s where we do shorter reviews of new (ish) albums that share a common theme.

If there’s a theme to this edition of Second Circle, it’s that I’m so bogged down trying to get my usual massive and way overdone end of year list(s) ready that I can’t find the time to do proper in-depth reviews for both of the albums featured today. Which happens to be the latest from Hammers of Misfortune and Arrayan Path.

So let’s do this.

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Initial Descent: December 4 – 10, 2022

JoshLeave a comment
Woods of Desolation

As Santa preps his brood for the impending travels, the new release lists will be shorter and shorter as we near the last week of 2022. Now, that doesn’t mean quality will suffer per se, but we shall see. Moving on, who hasn’t caught the new single from Metallica yet? Good lord go do that now if you haven’t. Alright then, this week we’ve got a hearty mix up top with black metal from Woods of Desolation, death metal from Ploughshare, and power metal from Arryan Path. And, of course, several more in the list that follows. Go check them out and enjoy. See you here throughout the week.

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CANTO: Psycroptic, Xenoglyph, The Cross, and More

CoreyLeave a comment

Slowly, but surely, I am working through all of my concert photos from the past month.

  • Psycroptic revealed details surrounding their eighth studio album earlier today. Divine Council will be out on August 5th through Prosthetic Records. The lead single, “Rend Asunder”, is available for your listening pleasure now.
  • We’ve also got some fresh cosmic black metal coming our way soon. Xenoglyph are releasing their sophomore full-length, Spiritfraud, on July 15th through Translation Loss Records. Check out the title track over at Invisible Oranges.
  • From there, let’s balance things out with a little doom. The Cross unveiled a new video yesterday for “Behind the Stone Gate”, taken from Act II: Walls of the Forgotten. That’s out on May 27th through Pitch Black Records.
  • We can close with some new GWAR, why the hell not? The below video is for “Berserker Mode”, the second track from The New Dark Ages. That album is out on June 3rd through Pit Records, and you’ll have the opportunity to catch them live basically now through mid-June.

“Ein Bier… bitte.”
– cmb

Second Circle: Arrayan Path and Almanac

Chris5 Comments

Second Circle

In Dante’s Inferno, the second circle begins the proper punishment of Hell, a place where “no thing gleams.” It is reserved for those overcome with Lust, where carnal appetites hold sway over reason. In Nine Circles, it’s where we do shorter reviews of new (ish) albums that share a common theme.

Here at Nine Circles we’re in a bit of caloric overload, our bodies lethargic and hungover from an overabundance of thanks via massive amounts of alcohol and tryptophan.  So you’ll excuse the brevity of the writing for this particular edition of Second Circle.  However, not only do we have a theme all set to go with two recent power metal releases that are the opposite of “suck,” but since both Arrayan Path and Almanac have the good alphabetical fortune to begin with the letter “A” it seemed like pushing fate not to get a post up.  So take a break from your Black Friday insanity (we’re all waiting for Cyber Monday, right?) and check out some majestic metal below.   Continue reading →