Circling the Bowl (3/18/23)
As highly esteemed music journalists at this prestigious Toilet ov Hell, we hear a lot of new music day to day. But what are we actually listening to? “Circling the Bowl” is a weekly series where we get to share the jams we’ve been truly been jamming, and we invite you all to share as well.
Rolderathis – This last week was pretty light on music listenings (I’ve been reading a ton), but I revisited (or first full-visited) a few ‘bums I’d written off and discovered there was more to them than I’d thought at first blush.
- Hellripper – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags
- Úlfúð – Of Existential Distortion (H/T to Stick for the rec!)
- Gorod – The Orb (Not sold on the first half, but the later tracks spice things up. Maybe in time the album as a whole will do it for me)
- MASSIVE GUN – MASSIVE GUN
- Ikarie – Arde (Only a few tracks keep my attention, but “Santa Sangre” and “La Sed” are very well-crafted)
Joaquin Stick – I finally caught up and have listened to an average of one 2023 album per day. It feels like things are picking up in quality and I’m able to find more stuff that falls in the “Very Good” category, including a few that I wouldn’t have checked out if I weren’t doing this stupid marathon of listening. Here’s some good shid from last week:
- Úlfúð – Of Existential Distortion
- Kruelty – Untopia (I don’t get into just plain death all that much, but this hits)
- Entropia – Total (Some unique blackened prog metal that’s doing it for me)
Spear – Our dumbass daylight savings time travel garbage has had my sleep schedule fucked up all week, and that got dang In Flames album killed my melodeath streak, so I’m extra cranky lately. Fortunately, other music is still good (regardless of what certain bird guys might say in Discord, NOT TO NAME NAMES), so I’ve been re-expanding my horizons once again. Still need to get on a lot of the good stuff this year, though- there’s been an absurd amount of listenable albums coming out already, and we’re barely a quarter of the way into the year.
- In Flames – Foregone
- Gorod – The Orb, Process of a New Decline
- Transgressive – Extreme Transgression
- Contrarian – Sage of Shekhinah
- Arkhon – Obiasot Dwybat Ptnotun (unfortunately found out Debemur Morti peddles Akhlys shit, though)
- Nekrovault – Totenzug: Festering Peregrination
- Paul Simon – Graceland
- Witch Ripper – The Flight After The Fall
Hans – Hey, first time I’m not mentioning old shit.
- Contrarian – Sage of Shekhinah: As Joe would say, “have you seen this? Have you heard this?”
- Ignominy – Imminent Collapse: neato disso deatho.
- Phrozen – Questioning Society’s Secrets: you like the High Command brand of crossover? Check this one out.
- Paralysis – Above the Abyss: more crossover, but sadly just two tracks.
