It may be a week or so later than we intended but – as promised – the Nine Circles Audio Thing is back with our Album of the Month for July!

Candidates were offered up on the gnarled stonework that is the 9C dais, and despite strong arguments by Ian for the storming dissonant fretwork of Occulta Veritas, Colin’s impassioned please for the frigid and beautiful Finnish black metal of Autumnfall, and Dan’s out in the wilds remote pitch for the all guns blazing power metal of Orden Ogan, only one could wear the mantle of Album of the Month. As this month’s presiding Host and Arbiter of Metal Justice (and therefore the only one without a candidate to proffer), Chris got on one knee and handed the rose to Vince and his pitch for the ever evolving and mutating gothic black metal post-punk emo warmth of Vuur & Zijde and their debut full length Boezem (Prophecy Productions).

Lots of ground covered, as the gang gets into the difference between blending genres together as opposed to letting them sit haphazardly side by side, the love of a good warm muffled thump in your production, as well as the merits of forging new ground vs. flawless execution of a tried and true formula. We talk about the similarities between black and power metal, and three of us even geek out royally (sorry, Colin!) over 70s era Genesis…and that’s before we get into what else we’ve been listening to in the month of July!

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