Review by Michael on February 21, 2023.

The Californian death metal weirdos Conjureth spit out a pretty brutal and unpredictable album from the depths of Death Valley with their sophomore album The Parasitic Chambers. What they present us in these almost 38 sick minutes can best be characterized as a mixture of old Incantation and consorts, paired with a lot of Finnish influences á la Krypts, technically demanding and totally wacky guitar parts like Morbid Angel conjured up at the beginning of their career and a few blasters of newer death metal like Grave Miasma, Dead Congregation or Blood Incantation play.

The album is brimming with aggression and anger and every pore exhales this atmosphere. Only rarely, like at the beginning of 'The Unworshipped II', which reminds very strikingly of a very old My Dying Bride, the three guys take the speed off the gas pedal and drift into rather death-doomy realms. But even in these slower domains, pure malevolence prevails above all (and this succeeds especially through the incredibly sinister vocals of singer Wayne Sarantopolus). Just listen to his barking vocals in 'Deathless Sway Of Torsos Calm' and hear how unbelievably sick and inhuman the whole thing is and when then the Morbid Angel memorial solo kicks in, it's double sick. The ten songs offer first-class death metal, which comes across incredibly varied and never threatens to drift into irrelevance or boredom. The guitars are very driving throughout the whole album but especially in the guitar solos, which are perfectly inserted into the compositions ('Dimensional Ascendancy') and demand the full attention of the listener. Not just guitars and vocals but also the drums with their harsh blastbeat attacks play a central role in Conjureth. In 'Devastating Cataclysmic Unearthing' for example they force incredible brutality forth and the guys go to work with it excellently. Drummer Frankie Saenz really gives everything in the other songs but here he beats his drum kit to the hilt. The production is very punchy and fresh and what I might note is that Conjureth often works with reverb (especially on the vocals and the guitar solos), which benefits the album a lot, because it transmits this underground and cavernous feeling superbly.

If you like rancid and merciless old school death metal, this album is definitely worth your time. No fireworks are offered here but The Parasitic Chambers is still a cool melange of different nuances of sick death metal, stirred together to a very digestible (or indigestible, depending on your perspective) soup.

Rating: 9 out of 10 sick points