GOSPEL

Corey Jason Cochran's wild and crazy project THE CONJURATION is a decade old now and has produced some of the most experimental death metal based music on the scene, so much so that many have had a difficult time wrapping their heads around this act, but lo and behold, this real band project that consists of Corey Jason Cochran (guitar, vocals, programming), Josh Moss (bass, keyboards), Eric Mills (drums), Perry Creath (guitar, backing vocals) and Jonathan Shelton (vocals, keyboards) has unapologetically stuck it out and forged their visions into reality whether anybody else approves or not.

Granted that if you go all the way back to the beginning, albums like "Madgod: A Psychonautical Journey Into Mania And Dementia" were a bit grandiose with a desired sense of epic greatness not matched by the talent going into it but slowly over the past decade THE CONJURATION has matured into a well-oiled albeit psychotic and schizoid metal band and with its sixth album GOSPEL. It almost sounds like this band is ready to burrow through a wormhole and take on the soundtrack of another dimension entirely and is indeed the type of extreme metal madness that pleases avant-gardists such as myself while irritating many other metal purists like a swarm of stinging hornets.

In this run of ten tracks that are just shy of 43 minutes of playing time, THE CONJURATION deftly juxtaposes the harsh abrasiveness of tech death metal with thrash metal stomps, metalcore breakdowns and symphonic non-metal cadences fueled with electronica, moments of lounge lizard exotica, classical piano rolls and a few other tricks all infused into a progressive procession of mathcore laced madness and lots of stop and start mind[%*!#]ery that allows all kinds of non-metal sounds to seep in between the silent cracks and allow complete shifts in style derail the entire train of thought before drifting off in some cockamamie freak show and then regaining the train of thought before losing it again!

The closest metal act i can compare this one to would be Azure Emote, especially the debut album "Chronicles Of An Aging Mammal" which is utterly bonkers and so is this really! While this album is truly chaotic, the production is off the charts excellent with interesting juxtapositions of counterpoints which is quite fascinating. Individually the instruments play melodic parts but in opposition to one another and the stop / start freneticism allows extreme metal guitar distortion to alternate with keyboards, violins or whatever else these freaky dudes can conjure up. Perhaps the most insane track of all is the mondo-bizarro "A Sickening Display" which sounds like an industrial metal band has gotten stuck in an old vacuum tube with electrical shocks making intermittent high voltage sessions.

When all is said and done, just look at the album cover and imagine a soundtrack to it only intensified by extreme deathened mathcore with industrial electronica, caffeinated classical elements and jittery A.D.D. changes that will drive those who needs recognizable patterns [%*!#]ing bonkers. Whether you can tolerate this one or not, you can't help but be impressed by the musicianship and artistic statement being presented. This is not just avant-garde weirdness for its own sake. This definitely has a very strange twisted beauty to it and despite the comparison to Azure Emote that is only the closest other deranged band that i can come up with. This actually exists in its own little universe and all the better for it. Personally i find this engaging all the way through. It's one of those albums that succeeds in taking me somewhere completely new and unexpected and does a mighty fine job in the process. Bravo!