ALBUM REVIEW: Empire of the Worm – Conquest Icon
Poland is a nation that has been producing some of the best extreme metal acts on the planet for close to the last two decades. As you’d expect, being a country that’s absolutely saturated with world class acts, Poland has plenty of hidden gems within its underground. Warsaw’s CONQUEST ICON are one of those bands, and have been putting out great music since the release of their debut Hellspire album a decade ago. Their latest album, Empire of the Worm, is another excellent outing for CONQUEST ICON, and sees them hone and refine their sound, making for their most impressive record to date.
Vermin starts Empire of the Worm off with some utterly monstrous death metal, building a huge wall of noise and making a completely savage sound right from the first note. It’s a solid and impressive opener, and sets a dark and oppressive tone for the rest of the album. Sacrificial Circle is a more mid-paced offering, with chugging guitar hooks and authoritative drumming giving a much more groove laden sound. It has a fair few dissonant moments as well, with the song ebbing and flowing between measured and rabid passages with ease. Deathlike Shadows Rising makes use of a bleak, almost doom metal inspired approach making for a song that is initially more hypnotic than the first two, but quickly launches into a burst of bestial blackened death metal.
Unholy Death Metal brings the crushing groove back into the fray carving out a belligerent path and pummelling the listener with arid vocals and juggernaut musicianship. Empire of the Worm‘s fifth, titular track, follows in much the same vein, utilising robust guitar hooks and punishing percussive assaults to provide an excellent backdrop to feral vocals, with a few spoken word sections added to establish a sepulchral atmosphere. Toward Darkness is the most aggressive song on the whole record, setting a blistering pace right out of the gate and making use of a higher register of vocals to create a monolithic slab of death metal. CONQUEST ICON get a little more adventurous with their guitar work here than on earlier points on the record, with tight and imaginative leads adding another layer to the intensity and power.
Behold the Flames of Hell is a dark and unerringly ferocious track with lots of excellent lead guitar hooks and feral vocals, which both contribute to this being one of the more primal affairs on the whole album. It’s an unrelenting whirlwind of crushing riffs, powerful drumming and arid vocals, and it’s hard not to get drawn into this song immediately. Pilgrim of Doom has a much more primitive and visceral feel to it, with rhythmic drums interlocking with the guitars, making this a huge and monolithic piece of music right off the bat. The vocals are a little more varied than on many points of Empire of the Worm, with a few domineering, spoken word passages breaking up the bestial gutturals and giving this song a much different vocal approach.
Crown the Beast takes the listener down a slower and more doom-laden path than most of the album, with various points on this track being every bit as atmospheric as they are aggressive. The guitars and drums set a chaotic, rabid tone that really lends itself to the acidic snarl of the vocals incredibly well. The song’s second half is more jarring and dissonant than the first, with the guitars beginning to make use of disjointed guitar motifs, giving this a more grating sound than the last few songs. It’s an impressive track that leads into the albums tenth and final song, Here and Beyond, perfectly. This final song is a dense and sludgy death metal monstrosity with slick rhythms and a razor sharp lead guitar that provides a great contrast. The vocals provide a demented howl to the proceedings that makes this song sound all the more massive.
Across Empire of the Worm, CONQUEST ICON brilliantly balance between rawness and finesse, sounding just dirty enough to grab the attention of old school fans, while at the same time being polished enough to not be off-putting to fans who are new to the genre. On the whole, this is a great album that builds on the many merits of Hellspire and amplifies CONQUEST ICON‘s many strengths.
Rating: 8/10
Empire of the Worm is out now via Godz Ov War Productions.
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