Conjurer – Unself (Review)

This is the third album from UK sludge/post-metallers Conjurer.

Each Conjurer album so far has been a notable one. From their 2018 debut Mire, to 2022’s Páthos, the band have show an ability to craft quality heavy music, while also progressing their sound between releases. Unself contains 45 minutes of new music from this talented act, I have been very keen to hear it. So, what does it bring us?

Something very good, that’s what.

Unself is a journey into darkness and exploratory heaviness. Conjurer increased their raw emotive power on Páthos, and on Unself have continued on this journey, increasing it further. As such, this new record is richly textured, with a greater degree of diversity on display. New sounds and ideas are used and used well across the record, while still also managing to be the band’s harshest, heaviest, and most brutally sincere offering.

Across the album you’ll find everything from light introspection, post-rock delicacy, and warm beauty, to abrasive sludge, crushing doom hostility, and murderous post-metal heaviness. From lone acoustic guitar to blast beat-driven brutal intensity, Unself does it all, and much more between. Soaked in progressive depth that allows Conjurer to roam where they will, this isn’t always as constantly heavy as their past records, but where it is, they’ve taken things to new extremes.

It may sound strange, but in some ways Conjurer now remind me of a band like Panopticon. I mean this in the sense that both bands have a breadth of sound, wrapped in a core identity, and manage to play extreme music while imbuing their material with real emotive weight. Obviously the style is different, but the similarities struck me. It’s quality, all the way through.

Unself is the most accomplished and advanced collection of songs that Conjurer have given us so far, and that’s saying something given their track record.

Essential listening for fans of modern, emotion-rich heavy music.