Staff Infections – November 2019

Here we are, friends, with the second-to-last edition of Staff Infections for 2019. The holiday season and list season approach. Usually, this is the time of year that labels release product from the big names, presumably so that people can spend their Christmas gift cards on metal. 2019 seems to have less of a year-end crush of big-name releases. Instead, the quality has been spread out a bit more this year. However, there are still a few high-profile records recently released or due in the near future, so let us see if any of them showed up in the playlists.

In a not-terribly surprising development, Blood Incantation takes first place this month with Hidden History of the Human Race. Hidden History is not out for a couple weeks yet, but some of us around here have been doing our damnedest to see if it is possible to wear out a digital promo. Chief among those is Ryan Tysinger, whose detailed and insightful review of Hidden History of the Human Race can be found here. Sharing first place with Blood Incantation is Swans with leaving meaning. Although often very heavy, Swans falls a bit outside Last Rites’ general purview, so a review here is unlikely. On the other hand, old Danhammer absolutely loves Swans, so who knows?

The three-way tie for third place includes some more death metal, this time of the raging, gore-splattered kind from Exhumed (Andrew Edmunds’ review of Horror can be found here), some black(ish) metal in Obsequiae’s forthcoming album The Palms of Sorrowed Kings, and some funeral doom from Esoteric’s just-released record A Pyrrhic Existence.

As is now the usual deal, we have a spiffy Spotify playlist featuring selections from the staff playlists for you to enjoy, hopefully while you share your own playlist in the comments. And while you’re at it, since its getting late in the year and we’ve got best-of lists to make, share a great record from 2019 that you feel might have gone under the radar.

Until next month, have a great Thanksgiving, and don’t let the ever-decreasing daylight get you down.

• • Zach Duvall
    Swans – leaving meaning.
    Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Colorado
    Middian – Age Eternal
    Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full
    Esoteric – The Maniacal Vale
    Nile – Black Seeds of Vengeance
  • Jeremy Witt
    Weeping Sores – False Confession
    Whitesnake – Slide It In
    Apocrypha – The Eyes Of Time
    Exhumed – Horror
    Love / Hate – Blackout In The Red Room
    No One Knows What The Dead Think – No One Knows What The Dead Think
  • Danhammer Obstkrieg
    Obsequiae – The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
    Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race
    Esoteric – A Pyrrhic Existence
    The Night Watch – An Embarrassment of Riches
    Leprous – Pitfalls
    Swans – leaving meaning.
  • Manny-O-War
    Obsequiae – The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
    Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race
    Esoteric – A Pyrrhic Existence
    Chet Baker – Strollin’
    Wolfbrigade – The Enemy: Reality
    The Lone Madman – Let the Night Come
  • Fetus Ghost
    Malevich – Our Hollow
    Sâver – They Came with Sunlight
    Hällas – Excerpts from a Future Past
    The Callous Daoboys – Die on Mars
    Strawberry Girls – Tasmanian Glow
    10 Ft. Ganja Plant – Bass Chalice
  • Ryan Tysinger
    Judas Iscariot – Heaven In Flames
    Judas Iscariot – Thy Dying Light
    Abysmal Grief – Abysmal Grief
    Nocternity – Crucify Him
    Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II
    Mutiilation – Black Millenium (Grimly Reborn)
  • Jeremy Morse
    Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race
    Nile – Vile Nilotic Rites
    Riot – Fire Down Under
    Gary Moore – After the War
    Gatecreeper – Deserted
    Exhumed – Horror
  • Captain
    Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Talk About the Weather
    Djevel – Ormer Til Armer, Maane Til Hode
    Swans – leaving meaning.
    Steve Hauschildt – Nonlin
    A Winged Victory for the Sullen – The Undivided Five
    Dimhav – The Boreal Flame

Posted by Jeremy Morse

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