conan - violence dimension

the new conan crushes as usual. i have yet to decide where i rank this one in the now quite vast discography of the band, but it's a banger for sure. 150 copies made of this tri-colour merge vinyl. heavy psych sounds. 2025.

conan - existential void guardian

2018 seems to become a very prolific year in terms of new releases. the year already saw excellent new records by ghost, obscura, bongripper, the faceless, between the buried and me - just to name a few. the last quarter of the year doesn't look too bad either. i am waiting for stuff of behemoth, sick of it all or beyond creation. and right here is the almighty conan. this british trio quickly worked its way into my personal league of most respected bands and thus a new full length is a no-brainer purchase.

i pre-ordered at napalm records from austria, conan's label since "blood eagle", and they had two colour vinyl options on offer. the obligatory solid gold edition limited to 200 copies and a dark green edition out of 300 copies. because i think solid gold vinyl looks extreme shite, i did not give a damn about limitations and opted for the green vinyl. holding the actual outcome in hands, i can sleep with the certainty of having made the right decision. the vinyl colour looks real nice against the centre labels. for the visuals conan worked with again with artist anthony roberts. dark, ominous and menacing - the perfect match to the tunes.

musically "existential void guardian" is a fantastic soundtrack to all the dark parts which have been visualised by the lord of the rings movies. i am not too much a fan of that fantasy stuff but this sort of imagery comes to my mind immediately listening to conan. the album is a bit faster at times, it even offers a fifty five second short grind metal song called "paincantation". but the slow tunes are what conan is best at and so the last songs on each side of vinyl are the peak moments of the album to me. "amidst the infinite" and "eternal silent legend" are the essence of conan in its purest form. don't really need the second disc with a few live songs, though. still, brilliant effort of conan. i hope to catch them live in two weeks. napalm records. 2018.

conan - revengeance

conan is back again. this british, steroid pumped, low tuned and dripping-with-blood-of-its-enemies monster of a doom metal band strangles us all with this fourth album aptly called 'revengeance'. just as if only vengeance, respectively only revenge wouldn't be enough, this newly coined word gives the listener a glimpse of what is to be expected from conan's number four.

in november 2015, when napalm records announced the release of 'revengeance' for the end of january 2016, there was not the faintest shadow of a doubt that i would be all over the pre-order. napalm offered a lame silver coloured vinyl option and a lesser limited orange splatter variant. napalm seems to go the same boring way as nuclear blast records, pressing all their records on either gold or silver coloured vinyl.

for my part, i am really annoyed by this procedure so i opted for the lesser limited splatter platter. a lot of folks did so as well because the splatter lp has sold out while the silver one is still available. anyway, musically conan crushes. you call this too repetitive? you call this too slow? you call this too rediciously down tuned? well, you better get out because this is what conan is all about. and they are brilliant at it.

probably they cannot outgun my favourite album 'monnos' but 'revengeance' is definitely second best. six songs full of relentless heaviness and hypnotic riffs. the soundtrack to thulsa doom's beheading, if you know what i mean. the artwork is colourful again and just like the 'monnos' art, this looks stunning. especially the inner gatefold is very nice with its flowing lava and thick smoke. 300 copies on 180g orange with black splatter vinyl. napalm records.

conan / bongripper - split

with my latest fascination for bongripper and with the already existing fondness for u.k.'s mighty conan, it was pretty clear that i couldn't get pass ordering their split release from two years ago. it was originally released via holy roar records from london. back then on 180gr black vinyl only and out of 500 copies. i believe they did this split in occasion of their united kingdom tour 2013.

in early 2015 both bands decided that this long sold out pearl should recieve a vinyl re-issue. as conan and bongripper both have labels on their own, black bow records on the conan side and great barrier records as the bongripper equivalent, what could be more apt to re-release the split as a collaboration on both labels? the re-press consists of two colours, dookie brown and translucent beer splatter. i snagged my copy from the finest doom label of the netherlands, burning world records.

musically there are just one song per band on this split and still the record clocks in at over twenty-five minutes. it's pretty rare for split releases that i find it hard to decide which side is the better one. in this case, i think bongripper takes the lead, but only by a hair's breadth. check out conan's 'beheaded' and bongripper's 'zero talent'. i love both bands and so this split is an absolute winner to me. both colour-ways are out of 500 copies and some still available at burning world.

now it's time for some nerd alert. this split is always listed as the 'bongripper / conan' split lp. this re-issued version was pressed to physical format by pirates press and reading the matrix run-out of this platter, it appears that the conan side is side a and the bongripper side is the b-side. even the sleeve is glued in a way that the conan cover is the front. i don't know for the holy roar pressing but for this re-press the correct title is actually 'conan / bongripper' split. do i nerd out too hard here? black bow records. great barrier records. 2015.

conan vs. slomatics - split

in the course of the last half a year conan vinyl became part of the highly frequented records of mine. their style of doom is most hypnotising and damn heavy. after i called the two full length's and the first e.p. my own, i was on the hunt for the last remaining stuff to get. the split with slomatics. i don't count the live recording and we'll see if i get the split with bongripper.

this baby was actually released on vinyl by head of crom records and the cd version by burning world records in 2011. as conan releases sell quite unproblematically these days, burning world decided to re-press this split on two more colours. musically the conan part is again absolutely convincing. two lovely pieces of crunching uk-doom. check 'retaliator' and 'older than earth' for yourself.

the slomatics side however can't come close to conan's contribution. i mean, this is not bad. but not really good either. nevertheless i can see why those two bands team up. they play similar styles. i like that. don't think it makes much sense to bring two bands on a split when the sound differs too much. the cover art proves taste. slow music for slow animals. made me chuckle. burning world pressed 500 copies altogether. some on red and some on blue. 2014.

conan - blood eagle

when i'm after a new band, i'm pretty persistent. if i really like an album of a certain band, i definitely want to hunt down their remaining vinyl output. the sooner the better. conan's 'monnos' was on heavy rotation on my turntable and therefore there was not even the shadow of a doubt, that i needed more.

getting my hands on 'horseback battle hammer' proved to be very easy as discogs came to my rescue. no exception with 'blood eagle'. fortunately it was released last year and because of that i was able to snag a copy directly from the label. considering the fact that i even missed the first press, i must praise conan's growing publicity which made napalm records press a second run.

the 'blood eagle' took a bit before it sank its talons into me. after the first several spins it was a good one already, sure, but not as mind blowing as 'monnos'. by now, i think, i fully grasped the album. for me this kind of music needs time to grow. the repetition and heavy slowness doesn't reveal its trance-like magick immediately. but when it does, it won't let up before the last string is touched and the last drum is hit.

check out the video for 'foehammer' and convince yourself! as i mentioned before i got a copy of the second press. the artwork is pretty ace, a bit more colour would have been nice but that's just my humble opinion. it's been pressed on a lovely, very bright shade of red. of course it's called 'blood red' vinyl and being out of 100 copies. the silver vinyl out of 200 copies is still available.

i love it when records come with a sticker to identify the colour and the limitation. every record should have that. no more questions for distributors, easily distinguishable copies in the physical stores and no more searching the net for pressing numbers. what?! a collector can always dream... napalm records. 2014.

conan - horseback battle hammer

after i bought the latest re-press of conan's first full length 'monnos' lately, i wanted more. the vocals of guitarist and bass-player plus their monolithic, down tuned riffing got me real hypnotised, craving for more doom metal madness. so i checked back what else the band had released. my usual source for such information is discogs and no exception this time. i came up with the information of an e.p., another full length and two split releases also in existence. even a live recording but that doesen't count to me.

i thought it would be apt to check their first e.p. 'horseback battle hammer' from 2010. it's actually their second output, but 'battle in the swamp' was a self-released demo from 2007 that never got the vinyl treatment. 'horseback' was put to vinyl for the first time via throne records from spain. they came up with a nice grey splattered limited colour version. then head of crom rec. from the uk did a repress on white a year later. and now, to my advantage, napalm records from austria just pressed another run on vinyl.

conan's latest record 'blood eagle' was released through napalm rec. and so they thought it might be a buzzing idea to release another colour version. right they are. i found a german seller on discogs who had it up for sale for a reasonable price. after i sealed the deal and payed the record, i found out that napalm had a left over copy in stock. stupid me, would have saved me five bucks. but i can still sleep, so it's alright.

musically this is not as great as 'monnos' in my opinion. the guitar sounds that overly fuzzed out. too much of a good thing, if you ask me. the songs are quite good but lack a bit of that hypnotic touch, which makes 'monnos' so outstanding to me. still 'satsumo' and 'sea lord' are good listens and it's essential background to fully understand their musical development. presentation wise 'horseback' has some nice artwork, but again i like the colourful approach on 'monnos' better. the gatefold is of matte card and thick quality. the clear vinyl with heavy red splatter is really well done. looks almost like the splatter has some texture. 300 pressed. napalm records. 2014.

conan - monnos

in my second post this month (life of agony) i spoke of my new mailorder find, hhv.de namely. this mailorder has a very, very decent metal section and huge part with small european and u.s. label distributions. all the stuff you don't get via the big labels nuclear blast, century media and metal blade. they have literally thousands and thousands of titles to offer. and in my foolish attempt to browse through them all in one go without losing  perseverance, i came across this one here.

the first thing that caught my attention was the artwork. it has a nice comic touch to it and reminded me vaguely of stephen bissette and his work on eighties swamp thing comics. it also reminded me of the 'death is this communion' cover art from high on fire. with reminiscence of two things i really like, i ventured over to the tube to see if my gut instinct could be proven right. i listened to 'grim tormentor' and fell in love. i'm not the biggest doom metal fan. in fact, a year ago i didn't even know one doom metal band by the name. things changed with austrian's iron heel and my interest grew. but, you know, there is doom and then there is doom. i love the mean kind with bottom low down-tuned guitars. and hell yeah, liverpool's conan is definitely that kind.

so i checked back with the label that released this cracker. burning world records from the netherlands is the name. never heard of them though. but my unknown concerning this metal sub-genre explains that to an extend. the first pressing of 'monnos' was long gone, as it actually appeared in 2012. but they had a fresh re-press available. probably to cash in on the release of conan's latest album this year. not that this would be a bad thing at all. the new pressing, now on green vinyl, was all coloured. so i didn't hestitate to throw this in my cart and check it out along with another record, that will be featured here next.

in natura this baby looks brilliant. this great artwork which reflects parts of the lyrics and the album title (if researched correctly, monnos is a figure taken from the world of warcraft video game, which people get crazy over but fails to excite me in any way), lovely thick, 180gr apple green vinyl and a black dust sleeve make it a pleasure for almost every sense. check this shit out and if you love your music neck crushing, steam rolling heavy, than this is your address. don't know how many were made. burning world records. 2012.