In April 2023, Colorado doomed heavy metal outfit KHEMMIS embarked on their ‘Deceiver North America MMXXIII Tour‘ with UK sludge/post-metal heavyweights and labelmates CONJURER, and Canadian atmospheric grinders Wake.
The tour package – along with Philadelphia natives SUNBURSTER – teamed up with videographer/archivist Sunny Singh of Hate5six to enshrine the May 6th performances at the Underground Arts in Philadelphia. Those videos are now available on the Hate5Six YouTube Channel.
In 2023, KHEMMIS released the two-song EP Where The Cold Wind Blows. The release, available digitally as well as on a limited edition 7″, follows the critically-acclaimed 2021 album Deceiver.CONJURER was also on the road in support of their latest offering, 2022’s Pathos.
Hate5Six has become a staple in the hardcore scene, documenting bands big and small in all stages of their perspective career. A political statement, the platform allows global fans to experience live music that they may not be able to witness in person.
The sets documented on May 6th were filmed and edited by Sunny and each band’s performance was tracked by KHEMMIS front-of-house Aaron Kelly, who also mixed their headlining set. CONJURER, WAKE, and SUNBURSTER performances were mixed by Bryan Batiste.
Check out KHEMMIS‘ Hate5Six full set, here: https://hate5six.com/player.php?album=10555051
Watch the CONJURER‘s Hate5Six full set, here: https://hate5six.com/player.php?album=10555422
Doomed heavy metal masters KHEMMIS released their fourth full-length studio album, Deceiver, in November 2021.
Six tracks of desolate, soul-awakening heaviness encapsulate a project that had been nearly three years in the making. With a title that reflects the internal struggles that many of us battle in our daily lives, Deceiver is a ferociously honest and appetisingly raw piece of musical artistry.
While the lyrical themes of Deceiver, sorrow, pain, and longing for hope, will no doubt be familiar to long-time fans, these six songs display a broader collection of musical influences than on any other KHEMMIS record to date.
It being our 4th album, especially after the transition between the last two albums, it felt really freeing. We felt that we could really do anything on this record,” explains drummer Zach Coleman.
There’s a lot here that we’ve never done before,” adds Pendergast. “In some areas it gets darkly psychedelic. I think we found a cool way to mutate things using transitions that feel really natural. There is a subtle symmetry between the first and last songs which is one of the things that makes listening to the full album a satisfying holistic experience. It builds from almost nothing, becomes very dark, and then you slowly crawl out of that lowest circle of hell.”
KHEMMIS’ Deceiver is a beautiful, musically ambitious journey from beginning to end drenched in impassioned melody and complex, unrestrained variations of sonic savagery adorned with chilling, intensely tragic cover art by frequent collaborator Sam Turner.
KHEMMIS is:
Ben Hutcherson | guitar & vocals
Phil Pendergast | vocals & guitar
Zach Coleman | drums
Dave Small | bass
Páthos is not an album for the half-hearted or faint-hearted. Elements of SUMAC, GOJIRA, old MASTODON, and OATHBREAKER, the new record is a multi-layered beast – sludge, death, doom, black metal, and hardcore influences clash and collide throughout, all masterfully finished by Will Putney‘s exquisite mix and master.
The fifty-minute runtime of Páthos is not without its moments of the sublime, with post-metal nods to CONJURER and Pijn‘s acclaimed Curse These Metal Hands project throughout. That a band can be at once so triumphantly beautiful and gut-punchingly heavy is a testament to CONJURER‘s quality and a surefire sign of their future longevity at the top of Britain’s heavy music scene.
CONJURER are:
Brady Deeprose | guitars, vocals
Dan Nightingale | guitars, vocals
Conor Marshall | bass
Noah See | drums
