The last notes of a sludgy riff slowly retched from a stack of amplifiers. As the bile discharged, Conan guitarist Jon Davis and bassist Chris Fielding raised their strumming hands in the air, tightened into fists.
The Liverpool doom-metal trio returned to Australia for the first time since 2016, airing selections from their new album ‘Existential Void Guardian’.
But alongside fellow performers Bell Witch and Lizzard Wizzard, the stage at Brisbane’s Crowbar (10 November) showcased how heavy and interesting metal can be when the beat is slowed to a crawl.
The rave synths of Scooter’s remix of ‘The Logical Song’ blared as local openers Lizzard Wizzard took the stage. The intro song was drowned out by the band’s guitars, squealing to life before stoned riff rumbled.
Three members of the quartet took turns on vocals, with a fourth person stepping onstage to join them. Each vocalist had a distinctive sound, supplying shrieks and roars, and mixed them up to give their tunes bite.
Making their Australian debut was Seattle duo Bell Witch. The band gained a lot of attention with their last album, 2017’s ‘Mirror Reaper’, which consists of the one, eighty-minute song honouring their former bandmate, the late Adrian Guerra.
Bassist Dylan Desmond and drummer Jesse Shreibman performed an hour-long version of the funeral-paced song that fully captivated the crowd. Under dim blue-and-red lights, Dylan picked clean, mournful chords from his six-string bass.
After five minutes, a fuzzed bass chord and massive drum hit caught some off-guard and made them jolt. The pace was slower than a funeral march, and Jesse raised his sticks in the air letting them hang above his head before crashing down hard into his kit.
Meanwhile, both of Dylan’s hands moved along his bass guitar's neck, with his fingers splayed out to create unusual chords. It was the least active audience at a heavy metal show, but throughout the entire tribute eyes were fixed upon the stage, with some closing their eyes and letting the soothing sound overtake them.
Then it was time for the UK headliners. Hidden within a heavy, smoke machine fog, Conan drummer Johnny King quickened the pace with blasts of drums. Guitarist Jon stood sideways with one ear on the unholy noise coming from his stack of amps, playing the nuclear boogie of ‘Gravity Chasm’ and sending one young fan into a head-banging frenzy.
The band’s Stone Age riffs had a primal effect on fans. Jon’s scream of “The will of man” in the jet-blast of ‘Vexxagon’ led to one fan convulsing.
A circle opened in the mosh pit, where fans propelled themselves across it, shoving whoever got in their way. By the time of ‘Battle Of The Swamp’ arrived, fans abandoned the circle, instead pushing themselves against the stage barrier to be as close to the slow riffs 'puking' into the room.
With their final note, the band raised their fists again and were joined by a sea of raised fists before them completely under Conan’s control.
