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Album Review

Conjurer – ‘Páthos’ [Album Review]

Irish quartet Conjurer has become one of the bright hopes for British metal. Read our thoughts on their new album ‘Páthos’ here.

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“The future of British metal lies in safe hands…” screams the bold statement which accompanies Páthos, the new album from Irish metal heavyweights Conjurer. However, if you’ve caught the quartet over the last eighteen months or so you’ll probably agree that, if these crushingly heavy riff mongers are to be the future of British metal, then their new album, Páthos, needs to be something extra special.

Not only does it need to be spectacular for the sake of their standing in the British metal scene but also because following up their lumbering behemoth of a record that was the critically acclaimed 2018 debut Mire with anything less than stunning, would deem Páthos a disappointment. However, four minutes into the opener “It Dwells” any fears you might have are instantly calmed. Lurching through a swirling mist of rumbling riffs and serene sections, Páthos is clearly going to be everything you want it to be and then some. Suffocatingly heavy yet, at times, melancholic and dreamy, Páthos masterfully sways from the haunting almost black metal darkness of “Rot” to the thunderous fury of “Suffer Alone.”

Over the top of this ferocious yet unnervingly beautiful display come the howls and screams of Brady Deepose and Dan Nightingale. Much like the soundtrack, the pair effortlessly provide a voice to Conjurer that matches the mood of the music whether it be hauntingly melancholic or downright feral. Or in fact, a combination of the two as “Basilisk” captures. From slow, dank, filthy heaviness to calmer, almost proggy bursts, there are so many moments like this throughout Páthos where the flow of the record sounds so absolutely effortless.

For nearly forty-five minutes, Páthos wrings out every drop of emotion you may possess before the closing seven and a half minutes sees the quartet gather it all together in one of the most exquisite pieces of work you’re likely to hear all year. “Cracks In The Pyre” pulls together the brutality, the fury, the beauty and the darkness of Conjurer’s sound to tie up this album in a way that will quite rightfully leave you weeping in the corner of a dark room gibbering uncontrollably about Conjurer being the future of British metal.

Páthos Track Listing:

1. It Dwells
2. Rot
3. All You Will Remember
4. Basilisk
5. Those Years, Condemned
6. Suffer Alone
7. In Your Wake
8. Cracks In The Pyre

Run Time: 50:15
Release Date: July 1, 2022
Record Label: Nuclear Blast Redcords

I have an unhealthy obsession with bad horror movies, the song Wanted Dead Or Alive and crap British game shows. I do this not because of the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle it affords me but more because it gives me an excuse to listen to bands that sound like hippos mating.

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