Two years ago I went to a local all day doom metal festival which has since become an annual gathering. On that day I went mainly to see some friends and their bands play there. However I was well aware there were some bands from out of town booked on the bill as well, but nothing could have prepared me for co-headliners CONAN.



What really struck me about the band was, along with the crisp, flawless production that night, with each instrument sounding both perfectly isolated and identifiable yet effortlessly woven together in an immense wall of sound, the crawling, droning pace of their first track which instantly had me peg the band as some kind of amplifier-worshipping Sunn 0)))-adoring drone-doom band. And hey, I was cool with that. The second track, boasting one huge, meaty riff for the majority of the duration, before the pace quickens suddenly and it descends into a melee of riffs, pounding drums and real, crisp, brutal melody, came right out of left field and blind sided me in a way I simply wasn't expecting. That was the moment I fell totally in love with Conan.

Formed in 2006 in Liverpool, they didn't waste much time in releasing an EP in 2007 and demo in 2010. Later that year they released the brilliant Horseback Battle Hammer which was the first release to really be noticed, as well as a split with friends and Irish sludge metal giants Slomatics. Since then, full-length records Monnos and Blood Eagle, as well as a live release of their set from Roadburn Festival in 2012 and a split with the brilliant Bongripper, as well as relentless touring, have helped to paint the picture of what has to be one of the hardest working metal bands in the UK. They continue to grow in stature at quite a frantic pace and, in my opinion, are deserving of any praise thrown their way.

Playing down tuned, meaty, and visciously heavy doom/sludge metal, with themes very much rooted in norse mythology, battle, war and conflict, Conan have become one of my very favourite bands, and probably my favourite band of the last two years.

CAVEMAN BATTLE DOOM!!!

Discography


HORSEBACK BATTLE HAMMER (2010)


CONAN VS. SLOMATICS (2011)


MONNOS (2012)


MOUNT WRATH: LIVE AT ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2012 (2013)


ZERO TALENT / BEHEADED (2013) (SPLIT WITH BONGRIPPER)


BLOOD EAGLE (2014)


Listen









Bandcamp