Album Review: Pãthos by Conjurer Mick Hezemans
I was flying blind on this one, my first time hearing Conjurer was listening to this album for this review and if you’re in the same boat, don’t keep reading just go and listen to it. It’s awesome.
Opener “It Dwells” starts off quiet, with a soundscape and clean guitar intro that builds into double kicks and death growls and serves as a nice prelude for what’s to come but it was the second track “Rot” that really caught my attention.
It starts quiet and real spooky like a soundtrack to an old horror movie and escalates to a sick caveman riff and the tempo stays low for the rest of the song. The production job here is killer, and all the songs have multiple layers of guitars, big drums, and phat bass, and when the tempo drops and things get slow and heavy, this really stands out as the album sounds big and loud when it has to when there are super fast double kicks and tremolo riffs or there aren’t many notes being played at all.
Whether by meticulous design or the nature of the songs, I found this to be an album that’s taken as a whole rather than a collection of songs. “Rot” ends big and loud, with huge drums and droning riffs, and blends straight into “….All You Will Remember” so nicely that you don’t notice a new song has started. This happened a few times over several listens and in different spots, each time, which gave the impression every part of this album was thoroughly considered and planned.
Usually, for a review, I like to go over songs and try to break down what they’re made up of, but this one it would get repetitive and would be an undersell.
Pãthos is essentially a combination of progressive Black Metal and sludgy Doom but they manage to cover a lot of ground in between. They balance the fast and the slow and the quiet with loud in a way that keeps your attention. It’s not the sort of music you can pop on for a quick 3 minutes but when you put in some time you get a lot back.
“Suffer Alone” for me was a standout as it starts off like a slap in the face and is a Thrashy, fast one for the circle-pit crew and pairs real nicely with “In Your Wake” which is a parade of epics riffs that made me look real dorky while driving to work. Overall it’s a great album when listened to as a whole and the songs themselves are all good in their own right, but when combined they Captain Planet together and get stronger. A great album that made me keen to hear more and see a live show.
8.5/10
CONJURER are:
Brady Deeprose (guitars, vocals)
Dan Nightingale (guitars, vocals)
Conor Marshall (bass)
Noah See (drums)
CONJURER:
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Review By Mick Hezemans
