Band:	Conan
Album:	Revengeance
Style:	Doom metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	January 29, 2016
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Throne Of Fire
02. Thunderhoof
03. Wrath Gauntlet
04. Revengeance
05. Every Man Is An Enemy
06. Earthenguard

Conan are one of those bands, much like Primitive Man and Leviathan, whose name simply couldn't possibly go better with the type of music they play. We all know that Conan isn't a pussy. He's a hulking Behemoth of a warrior who knows that battle prowess is a true measure of a man. And much like their namesake, the Brits in Conan do not see any need to deal in excessive technicalities. They're colossal, they're brutish, and all they want is to rattle our bones, which they're doing once again on Revengeance.

Nothing is really all that new with Conan this third time around. On Revengeance, listeners are essentially treated to the same brand of thick, heavy-as-a-hurricane riffage, pulsating drums, and the monotone-type vocals of Jon Davis that the band has been employing since day 1. The latter always somehow work more effectively than one might think: while Davis's vocals seemingly know little of the concepts of melody and harmony, the overall weight and simplicity of Conan's music somehow makes such concepts rather unwelcome, and Davis's approach is thus an ideal fit (see "Every Man Is An Enemy" especially).

What is slightly new about Revengeance, however, is the greater variation in tempo that Conan are working with here. Notably on "Throne Of Fire" and the title track, we see the band picking up the pace a bit with a more upbeat, head-bobbing, almost sludgey type of approach. And, I would argue, it's ultimately this formula that works much, much better for them. While the band have a certain hook and catchiness to them no matter what tempo they're playing in, this mood can tend to be lost with their slower tracks, and some of the longer ones, such as "Wrath Gauntlet," can thus give the impression of just dragging on and on. With a bit of a faster speed, however, the band are somehow able to make their music much catchier and more memorable, and it leaves a greater lasting impression, perhaps because more shifts in tempo give listeners a tad more to focus on and absorb. That is, we're not really as stuck in one place with the band as we might've been before.

Three full albums into their career now, Conan have certainly proven that while they don't rank too high on the originality scale, they're a "less is more" type of band who know how to make a lot work with very little. While the band still stick to a mostly slow-to-midtempo doomy core on Revengeance, the album also drops a few hints at a potential evolution of sound for Conan, and while I personally wish that the faster moments I mentioned had been in a bit of a greater abundance here, these guys should at the very least still be applauded for trying something new. Overall, this is still the great Conan sound that people have come to know and enjoy, albeit with a few minor changes that could yield interesting new results for the band if refined more in the future.