{"id":95488,"date":"2022-09-02T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T23:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=95488"},"modified":"2022-09-20T16:26:54","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T15:26:54","slug":"album-review-heads-for-the-dead-the-great-conjuration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-heads-for-the-dead-the-great-conjuration\/","title":{"rendered":"HEADS FOR THE DEAD – The Great Conjuration (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

HEADS FOR THE DEAD
The Great Conjuration<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nTranscending Obscurity (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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This international death metal act came to my attention via the \u2018Death Calls\u2019 track which appeared on their 2018 debut album Serpent\u2019s Curse<\/em>, and I always liked the way they dabbled with horror movie themes as exhibited on tracks such as \u2018Halloween\u2019 from last year\u2019s Slash \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/em> EP.<\/p>\n

The Great Conjuration<\/em>, the band\u2019s third full-length, brings more horror-obsessed death metal that exudes a compelling atmosphere while remaining melodic and above all, heavy. It\u2019s not murky death metal that Heads For The Dead dabbles in, there\u2019s thrashy elements exhibited throughout so expect plenty of frenetic outbursts. There\u2019s also plenty of crunchiness in those slower divisions too, the band sort of hinting at Swedish dynamics and the influence of acts such as Entombed and Grave.<\/p>\n

Ralph Hauber\u2019s (Revel In Flesh) vocals are deep and rough enough to strip paint and are complemented by the double axe attack of Johnny Pettersson (Wombbath) \u2013 who also plays bass \u2013 and Matt Moliti (Sentient Horror), while John Rudin\u2019s (Wombbath) exemplary drums just hammer throughout.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise then that the band does have a lot of Wombbath and Sentient Horror in its veins, but I also like the way the guys bring elements of the grandiose and majestic in with the bombastic traits of \u2018The Covenant\u2019 and the militant trickles of \u2018World Serpent Domination\u2019 that brims with arrogance.<\/p>\n

This album is probably the most cinematic of all the offerings put out by the band, just listen to \u2018The Curse\u2019 or the horror harmonies of closer \u2018The Fog\u2019, so while you get old school aesthetics there\u2019s a never a feeling of stale or mouldy dynamics. Instead, we get keyboard flourishes and seemingly vast, expansive landscapes led by the throaty growls.<\/p>\n

Somehow, The Great Conjuration<\/em> feels wholesome in its horror and it really is difficult to argue with its prowess as a foreboding and self-assured death metal record.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEADS FOR THE DEADThe Great Conjuration Transcending Obscurity (2022)Rating: 8\/10 This international death metal act came to my attention via the \u2018Death Calls\u2019 track which appeared on their 2018 debut album Serpent\u2019s Curse, and I always liked the way they dabbled with horror movie themes as exhibited on tracks such as \u2018Halloween\u2019 from last year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4992],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-heads-for-the-dead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95489,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95488\/revisions\/95489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}