Vancouver’s Atræ Bilis made quite the splash with last year’s EP Divinihility and nearly overnight made them a household name in any house that heralds death metal. A quick year later here we are with their debut full length Apexapien and they prove the success of that EP was no joke. From start to finish, this album is an absolute beast with teeth big enough to tear the planet in two. It hits hard as a ton of bricks but is amazingly smart in its construction. Not clinging to any one leg of death metal it blazes its own path forward with Albert Einstein level riffs and chest crushing blows around every corner. It goes without saying, this album is a favorite for us here at Nine Circles and for good reason. With that said, jump in for an excellent chat with David Stepanavicius via The Nine Circles Audio Thing.
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Retrocution: FM Attack’s “New World”

So, I’m not gonna lie: it feels, lately, like the synthwave universe is ganging up and trying to get me back into writing this column by sheer force of will. The release of FM Attack‘s latest full-length, New World, this past Friday marks the second time in the last three weeks that we’ve been graced with drop-everything, appointment listening from an absolute genre heavyweight. And dammit, I did drop everything and make my listening appointment. And now I’m here to tell you about it, because it might be the album to beat in synthwave this year.
Continue readingQuickies: Vancouver’s Satan Statue, Andrew W.K.’s defense of metal, and…BLACK BURGER
Another day, another set of news stories we missed while doing our actual jobs. Sigh… oh well, let’s not waste any time; here’s today’s set of Quickies–let’s see what we missed in the world of metal:
- In case you needed another reason why Andrew W.K. is awesome, well…here you go.
- Last week’s Billboard charts are out, and kudos to The Haunted, Earth, and Hammerfall for all debuting in the Top 200. They’re joined by something called The Color Morale, which I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I want zero part of.
- Thought you were getting a new Clutch album soon? THINK AGAIN, PUNY HUMAN.
- Got Satan? Vancouver does. Or they did, until an anatomically correct statue of black metal’s lord and savior was removed.
- Today in un-embedable videos we can’t share: a dad video bombs his daughter’s guitar performance to start shredding hilariously.
- And finally, today in yes-embedable videos we can share: the team over at Metal Injection has video of Ghoul’s full set at Saint Vitus from this past Tuesday. Check it out here:
Great stuff. And (actually) finally, I leave you with black burger. Which is an actual thing that exists–in Japan, of course:
Lovely. As always, check back tomorrow for more Horns Up!
-Dan
Live. Love. Plow. Horns Up.