Since coming completely out of nowhere with a shit kicking debut EP; I, Coventry extreme metallers Conjurer have been laying waste to cities up and down the UK and pretty much winning everyone over with their complex blend of death, post, doom and sludge metal. Don’t confuse them as a band that sound like a mish-mash of the aforementioned genres – instead the metallers share more sonic similarities with a ten tonne truck than anything else. Conjurer have been threatening us with a release of epic proportions for a while now – and doomsday has now arrived in the form of Mire. From the get go of album opener ‘Choke’, Conjurer do not fuck around. Kicking off proceedings with what can be described as a post metal mixed with sludge/stoner groove meets breakdown, backed up with vocals hellish enough to bring a building down. The tracks progression into death metal territory is anchored by some furious blasting courtesy of what can only be described as a human drum machine. The melodic sections such as the opening to ‘Hollow’ sit beautifully alongside Mire’s more extreme moments, lulling you into a false sense of security, before landing haymaker after haymaker upon you. Even the clean vocals showcased on ‘Thankless’ are a welcome addition before throwing itself headfirst back into one of the heaviest grooves across the entire album. Any other bands you’d see attempt to cross pollinate so many sub genres of extreme music tend to come across as suffering from some form of identity crisis. However Conjurer not only blend them together seamlessly, they almost make it an art form. Expanding upon what they started with their debut EP and achieving near perfection. With a debut as excellent and heavy as this, expect to be seeing and hearing Conjurer a lot over the course of this year. If 2017 was the year of Code Orange, 2018 belong to Conjurer.
Score: 9/10
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Twitter:@ConjurerUK
