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CONJURETH
The Parasitic Chambers

Memento Mori / Rotted Life (2023)
Rating: 8/10

Having missed out on Conjureth’s 2021 full-length debut, Majestic Dissolve, I made sure that this time round I would be there at the feast, and believe me this is some feast. The San Diego, California-based band somehow manages to be at once slick, melodic, brutal and technical with this impressive sophomore putting.

The cover art doesn’t really match the sound within, and some may be expecting a cavernous and dank opus. Instead, and even with those vicious vocal retorts, this is a well-crafted, often clean and pulverising record that refuses to relent.

From opener ‘Smothering Psalms’ through to closer ‘The Unworshipped II’ this ten-track affair acts as a ruthless tirade and volatile torrent that is destructive in its speed. There is melody, there is thought and an unnerving tightness, but it’s the sheer speed and cascading brutality which impresses the most, and with nary a shade of repetition.

With Conjureth you get streaks of Demilich and Floridian extremity, where vast walls of ruthlessness are constructed with hardly a stop for breath to the point that what are relatively normal length tracks feel like harsh blizzards of cruelty.

Shreds of technicality are injected throughout this full scale blitz. ‘Devastating Cataclysmic Unearthing’ combines mid-paced gnashing with intricate twists, ‘The Ancient Presence’ has thrash sensibilities to its attack, ‘In Mortal Thresholds’ follows a similar theme of mid-paced savagery and bewildering haste, and ‘Cremated Dominion’ is equally punishing.

Conjureth is such an unforgiving beast in its aggression that this opus really does take several listens to get into. Only the aforementioned closing track ‘The Unworshipped II’ offers any sense of relief with its doomy tones, but in general you can drop in on any track here and be prepared to be ravaged by complex shifts of what are essentially frantic batterings and frothing arrangements.

If you can brace yourself for such merciless berating then you’ve a harder skull than I, because The Parasitic Chambers is an ever-flowing river of tyrannical beatings. Brace yourself!

Neil Arnold

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