BitterJalapeno Orogenic processes fast-forwarded while the stricken lay dying...

The fifth full-length offering from Liverpudlian doom metal machine Conan shows no sign of deviating from spirit-crushing, despair-filled doom metal of the most ferocious degree. Clocking in at over 50 minutes, Conan’s latest is their longest album to date and is somewhat a return to their older style, centring the structure around lengthier cuts as opposed to the shorter, punchier tracks featured on 2018’s impressive Existential Void Guardian. However, there are still pockets of aggressive sludge here – such as the punk-tinged “Ritual of Anonymity” which contains some of the album's faster-paced sections. The aggression in the middle is bookended by two epochs of slow-moving, catastrophic doom which despite their length, do not outstay their welcome and are the strongest portions of music on offer here.

There are two things that Conan’s music always brings to mind: barbaric battles and geological processes. Opening track “A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots” is so destructively heavy and dense that it manages to replicate how I imagine the collision of continents would sound if occurring in 10 minutes rather than over a period of millions of years. The usual pulverising doom riffs are nuanced with some nice touches of post-metal adding stylistic diversity. Conjured in the mind are images of thick, slow-moving lava snaking its way down the side of a volcano as pyroclastic bombs descend from the ash-obscured sky above, reducing everything in their path to cinders.

In addition to the strong structure, the album impresses from a production perspective. The viscosity of the guitar and bass tone is unfathomable while still allowing the drums to shine through with crystal clarity. It’s obvious that Conan has lost none of its forbidding atmospheric quality and on Evidence of Immortality, some additional features develop this further. Organs are utilised to great effect in the funeral doom closer “Grief Sequence”, providing another layer of ominous atmosphere as the brooding, monolithic guitar chords gradually edge the listener towards their impending death following the aftermath of a medieval bloodbath. The sinister atmosphere intensifies as the song (and album) crawls to an end, assisted by the inclusion of warping flange techniques on the organs, delivering a fever dream-like sound as if the stricken listener is slipping into a delusional state as their life approaches its inevitable terminus.

Conan has delivered yet another high-quality lump of barbarically heavy doom metal and have once again re-cemented themselves as a prime act of the genre by adding another pillar to their legacy – one with the utmost consistency in quality, and undoubtedly, longevity.