Referring to a new or obscure band as a "best kept secret" is one of the lazier tropes in music writing and, in most cases, a faulty one at that. Nobody's keeping secrets; the writer in question just hasn't been digging deep enough. And the band isn't part of a silent movement deadset on keeping its every move hush-hush-- that sort of behavior would be a bit self-defeating, no? Plus, messageboard culture wouldn't allow for it: too many territorial pissings over who's heard things first and who was able to grab the demo before it disappeared. Cult is as cult does.
That said, it's almost certain a good number of Monnos reviews will describe Conan with that very phrase. After all, how else to explain the fact that a band this good is so unknown on this side of the pond? Joining a proud tradition of English doom, Conan have been smoldering away in the trenches since 2006, tantalizing the faithful with sporadic live gigs and a minuscule discography. All's been quiet on the northwestern front since their 2011 split with Slomatics, but they've returned with a vengeance, wielding a crushing new full-length. From the first moment of "Hawk as Weapon", it's clear that this is no ordinary doom album.
Many are those who have sacrificed years of their lives to the search of the perfect guitar tone, and this Liverpudlian trio has put them all to shame with a note. The thick, suffocating, undeniable heaviness is distorted to death and resurrected over and over again. Stoner doom lords Electric Wizard also understood the idea of tone as a weapon, and Tom G. Warrior achieved a similar feat with Triptykon's bleak, unrelenting heft. In the world of doom, tone is worshiped and revered, lusted after and idolized, and Conan have found their holy grail. Conveniently enough, the riffs sepulchered within that blissed-out fuzz are minted from pure gold as well. Simple yet effective, hypnotic without overstaying their welcome, burly without overstepping bounds, the guitars drip with distortion and waver between shades of Electric Wizard and Sleep's acid stomp and a stripped-down take on the mournful chords of their forebears My Dying Bride and Anathema. The rhythm section is infinitely important here and makes its presence known. (You can almost see the bassist pounding away at the low end, flinging drips of sweat across the stage as the drummer deals out punishing blows from behind his jeweled throne.) Again, simplicity is the key. Sometimes it's not about what you're playing, but how you're playing it. Conan understand this.
The tone does the talking. Vocals are sparse but engaging, floating above the murk, acting as a complement to the guitars rather than a centerpiece. A higher-pitched stoned wail is accompanied by a deeper intonation; both are drenched in unholy amounts of reverb and are also allowed to breathe. It's a similar approach to what's transpired in Georgia trio Zoroaster's more recent material or even a bit of the Brooklyn doomhaulers Hull's sound-- the lost soul in a wind tunnel approach. Monnos is uniform in execution; each song follows a similar pattern, and there are no massive surprises or unexpected flourishes. They have no time for such things. "Golden Axe" is the only track to break the mold, offering a lush, plaintive instrumental break from the constant wall of sound. The eye of the storm.
To strip the flesh from the bones is to find a band bent on replicating and revering the heavy sounds that came before them. To label them "stoner doom" does them a disservice. At their core, Conan are a doom band with repetitive song structures, and windswept clean vocals; the devil, however, is in the details, and the extra layers of effects and mechanical wizardry they heap upon their pure-hearted compositions elevate them to the next level. Monnos is their most solid, well-developed, and impressive effort yet, and those who walk the doomed path would do well to join their ranks.
