Music can make you feel, good music takes time to make you feel and you need to take your time with the third full length from Conjurer.
Unself sees the band again their most vulnerable, turning inward to channel their thoughts and feelings through their music on their most personal and political yet. It's a hell of shift from the band who have always played music because it was fun, they have all gained experience in life as well as in music and have put this maturity into sonic form here.
Their last record Páthos was a study in dynamics but here they evolve once again taking just as much time with the moments of quiet and silence as they do with loud heavy grooves they are so known for. The themes of this album stem from Dani Nightingale's diagnosis, at age 31, of autism and their realisation of being non-binary, these moments of struggle and realisation all playing a significant part in the writing of Unself.
Dani alongside fellow vocalist/guitarist, Brady Deeprose, bassist Connor Marshall and drummer Noah See, approached this record with more time for writing and pre production than any record previously, four individuals bring their own experiences onto a supportive, collaborative environment cultivated between them and producer producer Joe Clayton.
This collaboration coming as type of catharsis that they want their audience to be a part of through the music on Unself, music that is perhaps more stripped back to the core of what Conjurer do than anything previously. I will say personally that when I first listened to the album it glossed over me, I don't actually know if I liked it but, even through several other reviews and thought he days that followed, something about it stuck with me.
When I went back to it, that's when it started to reveal itself, for all the crushing heaviness, there's ethereal beauty on this record. Moments of all consuming angst, pricked by melodic expressions of relief and self discovery. It's their most dynamic set of songs with the differentiation between quiet and loud palpable as the keys and electronics from Tom Ragsdale, sit in the background.
Imbibing a sense of dread into proceedings as the band struggle with the our place in the world as the machine of capitalism crushes more and more in this wake. Unself is an ideological record and due to the big themes throughout they have to shift priorities, so the all consuming battery is now left for when it's needed the most, placed between these introspective ideological and existential realisation.
Unself and This World Is Not My Home both have a gospel influence taking inspiration from the 1919 song written by Albert E. Brumley (made famous by my grans favourite Jim Reeves), but Unself then explodes into the abrasive post metal aggression which continues through All Apart and There Is No Warmth.
The former with breaks in dissonance while the latter just punishes with the steamrolling precision of the likes of Gojira. With the guttural dirge of The Searing Glow, flowing through the acoustic A Plea and then into haunting beginnings of the euphoric Let Us Live and the thunderous Hang Them In Your Head too.
Deep diving into their own psyche, Unself is a unifying call from Conjurer and it's an incredible musical statement. 10/10
Dawnwalker - The Between (Room312) [Matt Bladen]
Mark Norgate is a musician who takes the same approach to Dawnwalker as Justin Greaves does to Crippled Black Phoenix, it's a collaboration, an ever expanding collection of musicians who bring their own expertise allowing Norgate's writing to be as expressive and expansive as he wants it to be.
Their last full length was incredible, highly rated by myself and they have followed that with a 32 minute song that is "a guided meditation through death and dying” using ideas of Eastern philosophy and Gnosticism to inform what is a journey towards the preparation for death. The psyche must be shocked into accepting death as natural part of life and age as nothing more than a way to reach it.
The song is a full movement that ultimately leads to the catharsis of accepting death but living for everyday a well as possible. Norgate fleshes out Dawnwalker to 12 performers on this one off track, the idea of writing something that cannot fit on an album but is in itself and albums worth of material, something Mark has wanted to do for a while.
Composed in through order, as in start to finish, Norgate wanted this composition to move in real-time, each element or moment, organically segueing into the next when it needs too. It's a track that needs to be listened too, intently as there's a lot of material spread across 32 minutes, from doom to death, post-metal to New Age, there's plenty of vocal interplay between Norgate (also guitars/keys), Sofia Sourianou and the returning Dane Cross (Solar Sons).
The spoken words from Amber Marie sitting on top of the synths/sound design from new member Jack D’Arcy, who joins the core line up of Chris J. Allan (drums), Luke Fabian (bass) and Matteo Bianciotto (guitars), the solos though are by Infected Dead's Alexander Brown.
Just these players alone would have created magic but a soundscape like this needs more and it deliverers with some saxophone from Oli Genn-Bash (Codex Serafini), bells and percussion from Dyana F. and piano from Archspire's Scott McLean, who mixed the records to give it the analogue sound they wanted when recording at Holy Mountain with Stanley Gravett.
I can't really pick out much from The Between as you do need to hear the whole thing, however do listen to the bonus track Remember Death as well as this ambient, spoken word piece does well to explain the concepts in The Between.
Ambitious and resplendent, Dawnwalker metamorphose again with The Between. 9/10
Mos Generator - Live At Roadburn Festival 2008 (Savant Guarde Records) [Rich Piva]
This could be a very short review, given the subject matter. It’s Mos Generator. It’s 2008. It’s a live record. It’s a Live From Roadburn Festival record. If you know anything about the heavy underground rock stuff then you know Mos Generator rules and a set at Roadburn at the height of the band’s powers is something that you need to check out. If you don’t know, this live record will certainly start to get you thinking right.
Mos Generator was three records in at the point this show happened, with Songs For Future Gods from 2007 being their most recent record at the time and is prominently featured on the setlist. Highlights include Silver Olympus and Y'Juana, but you really can’t go wrong with any of the classics from that record as they all sound great in live form. Lumbo Rock from the first record and On The Eve from the second record, The Late Great Planet Earth, are also standout, but as mentioned above, it is Mos Generator, live, in 2008.
The sound of this live record is raw but really good. No overdubs needed or wanted; you get the raw show in all of its glory.
Any Mos Generator is great stuff. Give me an excellently recorded show from 2008 and that is what I am turning on first, even on a stacked week with tons of other great new releases. Go listen to Tony Reed at the height of his powers. Who am I kidding, it is 2025 and his powers have not diminished one bit, but this one is pretty special. 9/10
Cattlemass - Alpha 1128 (Seeing Red Records) [Rich Piva]
I am usually not in the business of giving out 10s to debut albums, but when said album is as good as the first record from Los Angeles, California band Cattlemass, I am left with no choice.
Alpha 1128 is the title of the first full length from Chris Price’s one-man band project, and it sounds nothing like that it is just him playing all the instruments; but instead sounds like a band crafting what is to me the perfect sounding modern doom record. That is the beauty of the eight tracks that make up this doomy galactic masterpiece.
There are so many great aspects of Alpha 1128. First, a band where one guy plays all the instruments almost always sounds like it is one guy playing all the instruments and then piecing them all together, but not Cattlemass.
There are so many great aspects of Alpha 1128. First, a band where one guy plays all the instruments almost always sounds like it is one guy playing all the instruments and then piecing them all together, but not Cattlemass.
Until he told me is his first ever interview on The Rich & Turbo Heavy Half Hour, I thought that this was a band who recorded as a trio live in the studio. That is how great this record sounds. The recording is raw and something right out of 1977 in the best sort of way, but still is able to sound like what I want modern doom metal to sound like. The vibe is galactic space evil; the imagery in the lyrics is so great.
There is not a weak track out of the eight, with even the Intermission track being perfect for the vibe, and also perfect if you love creepy B level 80s horror movies. You want riffs? You get all sorts of riffs, all you have to do is press play and experience the first track, Chant Of Cthulhu. I love the vocals; nothing like some good evil chanting to get the day going.
The tempo changes are killer as well, as there is so much awesome packed into just this eight-plus minute opener. Eternal Beast turns on the fuzz and cranks up the evil, with Price’s vocals matching perfectly with all the riffs and with the straight from Hell background chants.
The Wizard is the filthiest doom on the record, with a riff that requires a shower after and a rawness that should not be as easy as Price make happen on this track. The already mentioned perfect Intermission leads to Nachthexen, where the story behind the lyrics is as awesome as the track itself is. I get a serious Type O vibe from this one, which is probably why it is my favourite track on a record filled with potential favourites.
Boy, do I love the sound of Replicant, especially how it opens. Just the little sounds and details in the song make it so very cool. We get all Sabbath on the slow burn of Infecticide, one of the more plodding doom tracks on Alpha 1128, and it works perfectly in the mix of the 48 minutes that the album runs. The closer, Exit Oblivion, is out of space doom at its finest, with these cool sci-fi synths that scream John Carpenter. The perfect way to roll the credits.
Chris Price is not new to the game, but Cattlemass is, and this being the first real project that he can call his own, it is amazing how perfect he was able to craft his vision on Alpha 1128. This is the sound of modern doom that leverages all we love from the past and brings it to 2025. All hail Cattlemass! A perfect debut record. 10/10
Chris Price is not new to the game, but Cattlemass is, and this being the first real project that he can call his own, it is amazing how perfect he was able to craft his vision on Alpha 1128. This is the sound of modern doom that leverages all we love from the past and brings it to 2025. All hail Cattlemass! A perfect debut record. 10/10
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