• 2023

    EP Review: Sublation – “On the Advancement of Decay” (Technical Death Metal)

  • 2023

    No(thingbutbangers)vember

  • 2023

    Album Review: Everson Poe – “the tower” (Doom/Sludge)

  • 2023

    Album Review: Neurectomy – “Overwrought” (Technical/Brutal Death Metal)

  • 2023

    Album Review: Gama Bomb – “Bats” (Thrash Metal)

  • 2023

    OcWHOAber Roundup

  • 2023

    EP Review: Hebephrenique – “Non Compos Mentis” (Avant-garde Black/Death Metal)

  • 2023

    Album Review: Adzes – “Inver” (Atmospheric Sludge Metal)

  • 2023

    Album Review: Lightlorn – “At One With the Night Sky” (Atmospheric Post-Black Metal)

  • 2023

    Album Review: Howling Giant – “Glass Future” (Progressive Stoner Rock)

Noob Heavy

Underground Metal & Hardcore.

Black lives matter
Trans rights are human rights
All cops are bastards
We have no leadership, only capitalism
 

  • About Us
  • Submission Policy
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Free Bandcamp Wiki 2022
  • Metal Redux
  • Commissioning Artist List
  • Lists
  • Food Desert Recordings
  • Join The Kvlt: Leftist Black Metal Column
HomeGenreDoom metalAlbum Review: Conjurer – Páthos (Metal)

Album Review: Conjurer – Páthos (Metal)

June 30, 2022 Ellis Heasley

Written by Ellis Heasley



>Conjurer – Páthos
>Metal
>Rugby, UK
>Releases July 1st
>Nuclear Blast Records

There’s a sizable corner of the metal world (present company included) for whom Páthos by Conjurer is likely their most anticipated album of the year. 2018’s Mire has quickly earned its place in conversations of the best metal records of the past decade or so, while the British four-piece’s 2019 collaboration with post-metal collective Pijn followed less than 18 months later to provide further proof of a band of even further range and craft. Big boots to fill then with full-length number two, but fill them they absolutely do.

It’s probably best to start with a bit of an explainer for the uninitiated, whoever they may be at this point. Essentially what Conjurer do – on both Mire and Páthos – is draw from just about every corner of extreme music you can think of and roll it all into one of the bleakest packages you’ve ever heard. Now, that might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but honestly, death, doom, black metal, post-metal, hardcore, progressive metal, sludge – it really is all there and then some. Most important though is that it doesn’t feel all chopped up and stitched together, but rather stands as a complete and cohesive work from a band with a clear sense of who they are and what they do best.

It also would have been easy – forgivable even – for Conjurer to have played it safe and made Mire Part II this time around, but that isn’t what happens here at all. Before you get ahead of yourself, don’t panic, the overall spirit definitely remains the same; it’s just that the band have also quite clearly sought to push themselves further still. Somehow, Páthos often manages to up the sheer sense of dread of its predecessor for example, including not least in the creeping menace that opens the album’s second track “Rot”.  This soon makes for a harrowing early highlight for the record as a whole too, the atmosphere remaining thick and heavy as the band deliver a kind of slow and devastating dissonance that feels a bit like Gojira running over The Dillinger Escape Plan with a steamroller.

Perhaps more than anything else however, Páthos is a record that’s defined time and again by the band’s ability to lean so heavily on startling dynamic and melodic contrasts while also always maintaining a clear overall direction and flow. Take the abject terror of the aforementioned “Rot” for example; it’s comfortably one of the nastiest tracks on the entire record, but it’s followed immediately by the clean vocals, post-metal grandeur and blackgazey blasts of “All You Will Remember”. Or after that, fourth track “Basilisk” spends most of its time embellished by sparkly clean guitar leads, only for these to be balanced out by a closing breakdown that’s arguably heavier than anything the band have ever done (seriously – those last 40 seconds are as straight up bone-crushing as any deathcore band is likely to manage anytime soon, only they hit all the harder thanks to the relative space which surrounds them).

It’s their ability to balance all this which ensures that Conjurer don’t struggle for attention at any point during Páthos’ reasonably demanding 52-minute runtime. Even with the record well and truly in flow the band still find ways to keep listeners on their toes, including for example by throwing the two-and-a-half-minute blast of blackened Converge-worship that is sixth track “Suffer Alone” directly between the lengthier and heftier post/doom metal of “Those Years, Condemned” and “In Your Wake”. Again, and crucially, this never feels like a scattershot approach; each track offers plenty of its own ideas, and yet it always invariably feels true to the overall vision of both Páthos as a record and Conjurer as a band.

Artwork by Jean-Luc Almond

Turning perhaps to the most pressing question of all – and be warned there’s a pretty wanky answer incoming – does Páthos surpass Mire? It’s hard to say at this point; to compare a brand new record to an album that people have had four years to come to know and love so deeply is ultimately a thankless task. What it is fair to say however is that Páthos manages to preserve pretty much all of the best things about its predecessor – the riffs, the dual vocal attack, the refusal to be pigeonholed into any one genre – while also revealing new and arguably more mature sides to Conjurer’s overall sound. That’s an achievement by any metric, and more than enough to at least start making a case for Páthos’ supremacy.

THE BOTTOM LINE

At the end of the day, and whichever way you cut it, Conjurer are a remarkable band – quite possibly the UK’s finest in fact – so it’s no great surprise that Páthos is another remarkable record. Most people probably won’t need much convincing to check this one out already, but if for some reason you are still on the fence then the sheer power of these eight tracks could well be enough to knock you off it for good.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...
Previous

Kep’s Mid-year Top 10 Albums, 2022

Next

Westin’s 2022 Mid-Year Review

Noob Heavy Socials

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Bandcamp

Spotify Playlists

Clickable links. They don’t appear red in the sidebar 🙁

Alternative Trans Pride

New Metal and Hardcore Albums 2022(MASSIVE)

Best Of 2022 Rap

Screamo/Emoviolence

Noob Heavy Stoner Doom

New Death & Grind

New Death Doom

New Hardcore

New Thrash Metal

New Technical Death Metal

New Doom & Post Metal

New Deathcore & Brutal Death

Melo Death 2021

Australian Metal

Emo Rap

 

Top Posts & Pages

  • EP Review: Sublation - "On the Advancement of Decay" (Technical Death Metal)
    EP Review: Sublation - "On the Advancement of Decay" (Technical Death Metal)
  • Join The Kvlt: Leftist Black Metal to Sink Your Teeth Into Vol 1
    Join The Kvlt: Leftist Black Metal to Sink Your Teeth Into Vol 1
  • No(thingbutbangers)vember
    No(thingbutbangers)vember
  • Album Review: Thantifaxath - "Hive Mind Narcosis" (Avant-garde Black Metal)
    Album Review: Thantifaxath - "Hive Mind Narcosis" (Avant-garde Black Metal)
  • Elden Ring's Most Annoying Enemies
    Elden Ring's Most Annoying Enemies
  • Album Review: Gama Bomb – “Bats” (Thrash Metal)
    Album Review: Gama Bomb – “Bats” (Thrash Metal)
  • Join the Kvlt: Trve Qveer Black Metal
    Join the Kvlt: Trve Qveer Black Metal
  • Noob Heavy's Best Album Art of 2022
    Noob Heavy's Best Album Art of 2022
  • Album Review: Body Void - "Atrocity Machine" (Sludge/Doom Metal)
    Album Review: Body Void - "Atrocity Machine" (Sludge/Doom Metal)
  • Metal Redux: Suicidal Tendencies - Self-Titled (1983) - (Thrash Metal / Crossover, Hardcore Punk)
    Metal Redux: Suicidal Tendencies - Self-Titled (1983) - (Thrash Metal / Crossover, Hardcore Punk)

Categories

  • 20 Buck Spin (4)
  • 2018 albums (25)
  • 2019 Albums (112)
  • 2020 Albums (133)
  • 2021 (207)
  • 2022 (172)
  • 2023 (134)
  • Antifascist black metal (28)
  • Art Feature (10)
  • Aussie metal (42)
  • Barlovv (50)
  • Black Lion Records (1)
  • Black Metal (182)
  • Brilliant Emperor Records (9)
  • Brutal Death (34)
  • Carcassbomb's Reviews (212)
  • Century Media (11)
  • Coreycritique reviews (6)
  • Cybergrind (8)
  • Death metal (244)
  • Death/Doom (59)
  • Deathcore (36)
  • Doom metal (122)
  • Ellis Heasley (59)
  • Espi Kvlt reviews (27)
  • Everlasting Spew Records (11)
  • Exhumed, Reviewed, Renewed (2)
  • Experimental (56)
  • Fiadh Productions (3)
  • Folk Metal (25)
  • Food Desert Recordings (3)
  • Frankie (1)
  • Funeral doom (4)
  • Game reviews (2)
  • Gothic Metal (14)
  • Greg Schwan reviews (1)
  • grindcore (61)
  • Guest Writers (10)
  • HardAlbumReview (47)
  • Hardcore (81)
  • Heavy Metal (47)
  • Helena (4)
  • Hypnotic Dirge Records (3)
  • Industrial (9)
  • Interviews (55)
  • Iōhannēs (1)
  • John Angel Reviews (23)
  • Katha reviews (6)
  • Kep Reviews (158)
  • Kirk (40)
  • Lists (49)
  • Luke Oram (8)
  • Mathcore (25)
  • Melodic Death Metal (49)
  • Metal (350)
  • Metal Blade (12)
  • Metal Collectors (8)
  • Metal Redux (14)
  • Metalcore (34)
  • MicroDose (55)
  • Musician Spotlight (6)
  • Noise (37)
  • Not Metal (48)
  • Nu-metal (3)
  • Nuclear Blast (10)
  • Peaceville Records (1)
  • Please Core (6)
  • Post Black Metal (35)
  • Post hardcore (41)
  • Post Metal (66)
  • Power Metal (20)
  • Premiere (2)
  • Prog Metal (86)
  • Prog rock (18)
  • Prosthetic Records (10)
  • RABM/Leftist metal (27)
  • Rae-Aila (6)
  • Rap (10)
  • Relapse Records (4)
  • Review (651)
  • Riding Easy Records (1)
  • Ripple Music (1)
  • Sentient Ruin Labs (2)
  • Shoegaze (15)
  • Silent Pendulum records (4)
  • Slam (13)
  • sludge (39)
  • Speed Metal (19)
  • Splits And giggles (4)
  • Steves reviews (21)
  • Stoner (47)
  • Swatty Reviews (7)
  • Symphonic Metal (19)
  • Syrup Moose Records (5)
  • Tech Death (78)
  • The Artisan Era (6)
  • The Sign Records (1)
  • Thrash Metal (44)
  • Tor Johnson Records (3)
  • Transcending Obscurity (28)
  • Trepanation Recordings (10)
  • Tridroid Records (3)
  • Unique Leader Records (19)
  • Unspeaking Axe Records (4)
  • Valky reviews (43)
  • Video Premiere (4)
  • Vita Detestabilis Records (1)
  • Westin (30)
  • Willowtip Records (17)
  • Within The Mind Records (1)
  • Xtreem Music (3)
  • Z list (7)
  • Zax Record Reviews (106)
Community
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
Subscribe via Email

Not sure who does this but it happens.

Join 127 other subscribers
Categories

Copyright © 2023 | MH Magazine WordPress Theme by MH Themes

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d