Headliners of festivals Hellfest and Roadburn, are English doom metal lords, Conan. This trio from Liverpool will be gracing the two-stage Armagedoom festival at the Rosemount Hotel this Friday, September 5.
“When Conan started in 2006-07 I just wanted to create the heaviest music possible,” guitarist/vocalist, Jon Davis, told Richard Maw of thesludgelord.blogspot.com earlier this year. “I didn’t know what genre we fitted into. I remember sending a message to someone on MySpace asking them what kind of music we did – I didn’t know! Horseback Battle Hammer (debut LP) came out and we were suddenly part of the sludge/doom ‘scene’!”
Conan’s most recent liquefying assault on our ear drums has come in the form of their latest album, Blood Eagle, described as their heaviest release to date.
“I think progression’s good,” Maw told the website. “I think getting better at what you do is good. People seem to like the style that we have. We sit loosely within a genre, but I think we are different in quite a lot of ways. This album drives home the fact that you can be heavy but you don’t have to be slow all the time. We love playing the mid-paced stuff. “We picked up on the fact that people seemed to get into those bits more, and that affected our thinking subconsciously; we have written songs now that have a higher proportion of ‘rocking bits’. Krull, for example, was 95 per cent slow and five per cent rocking at the end. Now, I think things are more 60/40. We just got better at what we do and capitalised on the things that are best.”
Joining Conan on the trip West are sludge heroes Yanomamo and locals Chainsaw Hookers, The Devil Rides Out, Bayou and Wizard Sleeve. Tickets are $20 (plus booking fee) through rosemounthotel.oztix.com.au with limited tickets available at the door from 8pm.
