Conjurer : Unself
The English Midlands has so much to be proud of. The pork pie, the Pencil Museum, the birthplace for metal’s original and beloved Prince of Darkness. There’s something in those canals: its industrial history’s black smog leading to Iommi’s founding of the nut-bend, then faster, meaner incantations like Napalm Death and its sprung-forth projects Cathedral and Godflesh. It operates on its own higher level in producing brilliant heavy music, each act uniquely poised as the scene’s next potential torchbearers.
Rugby’s Conjurer are no new act, but workhorses built into the very DNA of British metal, gracing historical festival stages in Donington Park and at Bloodstock (more spiritual Midlands homes, no less) and observing the genre’s forerunners from the fringes. They’re neither pure sludge (there’s blastbeats and all sorts of speed), nor are they slinging post-metal wizards. They’re equally committed to the sanctity of a headbanging riff as they are having a laugh; both Mire and Páthos meant serious business when purveying music like a mad bludgeon, while a Pijn collaboration resulted in an uplifting record named after one of Jez and Super Hans’ made-up bandnames in Peep Show.
Unself now marks a different course. While unveiling an inspired mixed bag of intricate tricks, everything is driven by a renewed and fully realised conceptual purpose. It’s as heavy-hitting as you know their brand of music will be, this time framed around the exploration of identity in an increasingly hostile world and an admirable exploration into Dan Nightingale’s own self-reflections, with the story unfolding around passages of beautiful acoustic-led arrangements that takes a full-scope listening of the record to sink in.
An adapted gospel track acts as a bookend, “The World Is Not My Home” finishes proceedings as a glorious retread of opener “Unself,” which devolves from an initial palate cleansing singer-songwriter track into a threatening beast. In the same way, each track plays around with its presentation to whiplash you when things feel settled. Beyond the more traditionally crushing and distinctly Conjurer single “Hang Them In Your Head,” there are post-hardcore-like tropes wrapped around an obscure little guitar riff on “There Is No Warmth,” and a turn in the tenebrous “The Searing Glow” may turn down the distortion, yet no less feels like traveling into a hollow grotto devoid of light.
A similarly cavernous effect is at work in the vocal department, particularly in Brady Deeprose’s yelled highs on epic-in-miniature “Foreclosure” and where Nightingale’s far-from-the-mic recording shines on “All Apart”—an on-record presentation of a live technique which blew my mind seeing them at Download. On the opposite end, “Let Us Live” acts as the album’s signature, building momentum through Noah See’s spacious, flowing drum parts, and an anthemic Greek chorus of the band’s friends unitedly raising concerns for ostracized members of society, duly preceded by a speech from Spain’s first trans senator Carla Antonelli. Following its clutches, it eventually collapses in on itself, in a repeated example of the band’s ability to provide wicked denouements.
At a time where comfort and security is getting tougher to find in a place trying its hardest to stop it, Conjurer’s brand of emotive metal feels that much more furious and vital. It’s a thoughtful voyage into place and self, proving once again that actual certainty can be found in the frequently impressive playing this UK metal four-piece have been delivering for years.
Label: Nuclear Blast
Year: 2025
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