There is a real whiff of brimstone, as well as grubby denim and sweaty leather about this one. Like many other bands across the globe, the wonderfully named Infernal Conjuration eschew the modern trends, sub-sub genres and nuances, and harken back to the days when there were… distinctly less of those! These Tijuana terror-merchants are strictly old school in everyway, and passionately so.
For a start, their latest EP `Death Has Appeared’ has a rough, gnarly, underground sound to it which has been dredged up straight from the early days of death and thrash metal; lashings of echo, a slightly tinny, mid-range, cutting guitar sound, and rattling, slightly chaotic drums. The sound of this EP is a perfect balance between rough, deliberately old fashioned chaos and a genuinely creepy, dramatic atmosphere like only the old albums had.
Like all old-school oriented bands, true originality is impossible, as they are harking back to a time that has already been and gone; lovers of the old classic bands will have heard all of this before. So, seeing as originality is irrelevant, the question remains, is it actually any good? In my humble opinion, they do a pretty good job of bringing back to life those grim and heady days, when some of us were squeezing our spots, squeezing our legs into tight black denim and blasting out our ear drums with this new fangled death metal stuff.
Like many of those old classic bands, Infernal Conjuration have a manic, thrash metal base to their music, but twisted and mutated into something darker and more sinister. By far the biggest influence I can hear is Possessed, which can only be a good thing to those pure `old-schoolists’. Like the aforementioned band, our Mexican Metallurgists crank it out fast and deadly, but also with a real sense of dark malevolence. Infernal Conjuration really know how to write a sinister, horror-filled riff. Occasionally I get a faint whiff of early Morbid Angel, but mostly they remind of me of true cult legends Mortem from Peru – another band from Latin America with a passion about the ancient death metal cult, and Possessed in particular.
So, to sum up; not at all original, but an authentic, dark, dramatic and deadly slab of gnarly old-style death/thrash metal. Dust off those spiked leather arm bands, squeeze back into those tight black jeans and get headbanging!
(7.5/10 Jon Butlin)
Leave a Reply