REVIEW: Pijn & Conjurer — ‘Curse These Metal Hands’
Critics like to use the phrase ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ because it seems to say a lot without saying much in particular. All too often it is a completely backhanded compliment. It says: this project has a quality that belies the limited talents of those who produced it. Conjurer is a midlands based quartet of riff-obsessives whose 2018 debut LP Mire established them as perhaps the UK’s most exciting and uncompromising metal band. And then you’ve got Pijn — Mancunian post-metal at its absolute finest, masters of musical pacing and tension. The sum of their parts is already great, and yet Curse These Metal Hands is greater still. Blissfully heavy, aggressively joyful, this Peep Show-referencing four-song epic is, by any standards, a profound achievement.
The two have been bringing out the best in each other since a special joint performance at ArcTanGent Festival 2018. They returned this year, more ready than ever to gleefully leap over any and all potential pitfalls. Take the collaborative project’s playful title: not many bands can make an eleven year old joke reference feel refreshing and apropos. Musically, too, they beat the odds, drinking heavily from the well of ‘post-’ genres we thought had dried up years ago, invigorated by Conjurer’s supreme ability to simply write great metal songs. Bookended by the best opening and closing tracks I’ve heard all year, this quadrilogy of songs is a giddy celebration of metal chemistry.
‘High Spirits’ drifts into existence with a clean, shimmering guitar melody, cymbal rolls, natural harmonics and the steady accumulation of instruments reaching a peak around the three minute mark. It’s nothing post rock fans haven’t heard before, but this is no mid-2000s crescendo-core. It’s a tasteful set-up and payoff that forms a perfect precursor to one of those most precious metal songs sit firmly in the category of ‘beautiful.’ The heavier guitar tones remind me of Pelican but I’m jolted out of any lazy comparisons by the quality and range of the vocals. The balance of death metal growls and soaring cleans is vital in delivering the lyrical crux: learning to navigate the highs and lows of human emotions rather than just ‘observe’ them. Rhythmic flourishes are crammed into every nook and cranny before drifting naturally into a blastbeat that makes the Deafheavens of the world look like amateurs. I’ll try and lay off on the comparisons from now on because I think this song has a lot to say about the most universal aspects of why we listen to metal: “Hold fast, these clouds mask a sun whose rays will make stark my darkest shadow.” What better mission statement for the genre could there be?
‘The Pall’ picks up the pace of the record, its echoey, tremolo picked melody easing you in and building tension at the same time. The nocturnal interlude is a familiar but no less eerie soundscape for Godspeed You! Black Emperor fans (a comparison justified by CTMH’s merch range.) Conjurer and Pijn stick more steadfastly to a harsh vocal style in this middle section of the album; ‘Endeavour’ almost seems to lean towards the black metal end of the spectrum. They key difference, however, is its two-minute run time, which corresponds to an increased sense of urgency. Perhaps there was also a concern in the studio that a longform, unpredictable songwriting style could itself become a bit formulaic, and an injection of pace felt necessary. However, for me, Curse These Metal Hands is a project I want to soak up entirely and allow each song to take the time to run its course fully. Considering the state of my attention span at the moment that’s one of the greatest compliments I can bestow on an album. I think what I’m saying is the song sounds like it has more to offer, and while brevity is so often the soul of wit, ‘Endeavour’ feels somewhat artificially foreshortened. Conjurer and Pijn have resoundingly disproved Shakespeare on the rest of the album, so my only criticism of the piece is that there’s simply not enough of it. Regardless, there’s still not a bad moment on the record.
The closing track, ‘Sunday,’ evokes beautifully that most bittersweet day of the week. Sundrenched and catchy, pensive but ugent, there’s just an incredible level of energy throughout, especially in the guitars. I’m finding it hard to comment on which members of which band are responsible for which of the album’s highlights, simply because they all gel so seamlessly and so fruitfully that it becomes irrelevant. The big picture is unmistakable; it’s two bands bursting with ideas, each one executed to near-perfection. What’s more, they seem well aware of how precious these musical and lyrical ideas are, how rare it is to have moments of clarity, how overwhelming it is to embrace the irrational idea things are going to be okay. Every word is chosen carefully for its very pure message: “Often it seems nary the faintest of glares could pierce this vast gloom that shrouds me … Peer through the shade and try to savour its warmth.” An acoustic break introduces the ascending and descending guitar passages that conclude the project, and what a triumphant conclusion it is. It sounds like both bands taking a bow, complete with jubilant harmonised soloing, a playful but tasteful appropriation of the time honoured tropes of the heavy metal genre.
On both ‘High Spirits’ and ‘Sunday’, the bands invite the listener to “Bask in the glow.” The tools they employ for us to do this are often stark and brutal, but utterly beautiful at the same time. Metal music relies on probing this unknowable line between brutality and beauty, order and chaos, life and death, and Curse These Metal Hands treads this line more brilliantly than any record I’ve heard in years. I’ve never wanted to hug an album so much.
