A few months ago, I found myself in a HMV, flicking through record after record.

My usual process of buying an album in-store either involves seeing a band I recognise, or seeing an awesome album cover, giving a song half a listen on Spotify then deciding if I should close the deal.

Páthos strayed from this convention. The cover stared into my soul. For the first time, I decided to go in completely blind. I was gonna risk wasting £30 on a piece of plastic I hated.

Can you blame me though? I mean – look at that cover. I’d put that on my wall!

The latest record by Conjurer is a culmination of doom, black, sludge, progressive and hardcore metal that creates something captivating.

The album, kicking off with the ominous sounding “It Dwells” features compellingly emotional riffing from the get-go.

Páthos’ musical density is a result of years of Conjurer mastering their craft from the basement they started in, to their first two albums paving the way for their latest and potentially greatest.

The album encompasses themes of fear, anxiety and battling inner demons with a visceral passion. This is done by buckling intentionally brutal screams with haunting, clean guitar twangs and pick scrapes in a way that is artistically moody and spectacular. Bringing in deathcore tropes such as blast beats and seating them with timid motifs seen in atmospheric metal not only adds to the emotion, it tugs at heart strings you didn’t even realise existed.

Páthos itself meaning ‘suffering’, ‘experience’, or ‘emotion’ equally in Greek, the title accompanies the music superfluously.

Not all of Páthos is written like this, however. Suffer Alone, the progressive and grindcore fusion provides for a great way to break up the album and set up the final Act. Tunes like In Your Wake have real attitude and weight which acts as a pendulum to swing the album in a more groovy and doomy light. This only adds to the force of this modern classic.

The experience closes out with the slow n’ sludgey Cracks in the Pyre that, admittedly, got me slow-dancing by myself in my room. This song is a perfect cultivation of the entire album and sums up what Páthos does best.

The record then closes with eerie noises of the instruments fading away into the abyss.

Páthos is not an album to be listened to, but one you must sit down to and experience; something people don’t do anywhere near enough. And I couldn’t be more happy with the purchase of this masterpiece.

I therefore give Páthos by Conjurer a well deserved “stop-reading-and-listen-to-it-already”/10!

Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment your opinions below! If you don’t have any opinions, tell me your favourite LED lightbulb manufacturer.