Album Review: Conclave, Dawn of Days
Posted in Reviews on April 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
New England’s Conclave deliver a harsh lesson in ’90s-style brutality with their second album, Dawn of Days, on Argonauta Records. The four-piece band made their debut some five years ago with Sins of the Elders (review here), and with the intervening time resulting in the limited cassingle “War Stalks the Land” (video here) and numerous appearances on the Eastern US Seaboard in clubs and at fests, the band has earned a reputation for their blend of classic death metal, sludge and melancholic doom. Dawn of Days delivers all of these and more in a relatively efficient five-song/45-minute LP-ready package, finding the band — bassist/vocalist Jerry Orne, guitarist/backing vocalist Jeremy Kibort, guitarist Chris Ciguere and drummer Dan Blomquist — with an approach it’s still fair to call refined despite its outward grit and the glee with which Kibort gurgles out the end of eight-minute centerpiece “Haggard,” which is nothing if not a song for our times.
The band’s pedigree is well established, with Ciguere having done time in thrashers PanzerBastard, Blomquist doubling in Benthic Realm and Orne fronting then-and-now incarnations of WarHorse as well as having been in death metallers Desolate with Kibort. All of this is relevant but perhaps not crucial to understanding where Conclave are coming from on their second record — that is to say, the band’s deathsludge is their own regardless of what members have done in other projects, and the quiet guitars that begin the intro to the opening title-track establish a bleak but thoughtful atmosphere at the outset that is maintained no matter how pummeling things get; an answer back later provided by 13-minute closer “Suicide Funeral” for good measure. But things do get fairly pummeling, and by “things” I mean riffs, vocals, tones and drums. Orne‘s throaty shouts are recognizable and raw from their first arrival, and they cut through the relative fullness of the surrounding guitar distortion all the more for that, giving way to first solo and slowdown-into-chug that’s all the more sludged for its inclusion of wah-bass. Somehow, the song is catchy.
Eric Sauter recorded at Blackheart Sound in Manchester, New Hampshire, and Monolord‘s Esben Willems mastered in Gothenburg, Sweden, at Studio Berserk, and the intention toward heft — as well as the accomplishment thereof — is unmistakable. “Dawn of Days” is not so much content to ride its groove as it is gleeful, and as the band transitions into the mostly-speedier “Death Blows Cold,” the theme holds firm, machine-gun drums and galloping guitar placed first to lead into the tumult of the first verse, impact and aggression at the center with Kibort backing Orne on vocals before the chorus pays off the tension built with an overarching echo of guitar lead. There’s a solo yet to come, and they finish with double-kick and clench-teeth-circle-headbang chug, but they don’t forget amid the melee to bring back that lead either, and it serves well to tie the track’s progression together even as they move toward arguably Dawn of Days‘ most brutal stretch, with little momentum sacrificed as “Haggard” picks up where its predecessor left off. Kill, kill, kill, gentlemen. Fast or slow.
“Haggard” is a highlight for the added complexity it brings after the relatively simple pleasure of assault on “Death Blows Cold,” but all the more so because of what it leads to in “Thrown on Spikes” — nobody ever accused Conclave of subtlety — and the aforementioned “Suicide Funeral,” the two songs comprising the entirety of side B where side A had three. “Haggard,” then, is the transitional stretch, and it returns to some of the method of “Dawn of Days” but is faster and leaning toward the more extreme end of the band’s sound, their effectiveness at not only being willing to go there, but conscious of tipping to one side or another a further asset to coincide with the drive that emerges in “Haggard”‘s second half. Mirroring in some fashion the beginning of the record, “Thrown on Spikes” begins with a section of quiet guitar to which a significant plod is added, and the adjustment of expectation as the band shifts into a massive chug ‘n’ crash is immediate — the song’s name perhaps deriving from the feeling of what they’re doing to the listener at that point, as well as the title line in the chorus.
One way or the other, it is the stuff of tape-trading daydreams, which makes it even more notable that Conclave shift immediately into the comparatively modern-feeling “Suicide Funeral,” allowing the guitar to flesh out some of the more depressive echo across its span and resulting in a feel that brings Pallbearer-style instrumental emotionalism into the context of Conclave‘s own brutality. It is a fascinating meld, almost surprising in its level of engagement, but not at all out of place for how well they set up the progression that moves toward it across the previous cuts. The layered leads around on either side of the 10-minute mark are a rousing crescendo for a build that’s both wistful and righteously heavy, and it’s further to the band’s credit that, as much bludgeoning as they’ve already done — nothing left to prove there — they end with something willfully melodic and drifting, a long fade leading to an acoustic closeout, calling back to the start of the record for completeness’ sake as well as that quiet start to “Thrown on Spikes,” bringing symmetry to the one-into-the-next structure of side B.
That sense of Dawn of Days as a whole work, meant to be taken in its entirety, isn’t to be understated, however much a song like the title-track or “Death Blows Cold” might stand out along the way. It speaks to the underlying purposefulness that Conclave bring to this awaited sophomore effort, the execution of which is fluid and immersive despite the outwardly punishing aspects of its aesthetic. Though the years since Sins of the Elders saw Orne revive WarHorse, what’s made clearest throughout the proceedings here is that Conclave have not been left behind in the wake of that reunion’s success, and neither has their growth as a unit been forgotten. It may be that they’re speaking to ends-as-new-beginnings in the album’s title, and if so, what unfolds throughout could hardly be more encouraging.
