Live Review: CONAN BELL WITCH, MENTAL CAVITY Basement, Canberra

Conan are an excellent reminder that doom metal is essentially a sound pioneered in Britain. Its easy to forget that with a sizeable chunk of the better known acts coming out of the States but the sheer density of Conan’s material demonstrates a particularly European sound. It often ends up being closer to older sounding funeral doom than the more groove based output their US counterparts generally produce. It is, in every way, unrelenting. The sound is pure, hellborn menace. They play to a sizeable crowd for a Wednesday night in Canberra and as they do they lay waste to everything in the room.
Before Conan start their set they are opened for by local act Mental Cavity, a three piece made up of members of the sludge metal combo I Exist. Mental Cavity are probably a little less grinding in their sound than I exist and incorporate some elements of punk and death into their sound. It’s fucking brutal though and the ferocity with which they play sets the standard for the night early on.
Mental Cavity are followed by Seattle-based two piece, Bell Witch. Bell Witch are a difficult band to talk about in any conventional way because they aren’t a band in any conventional sense and they don’t perform any kind of conventional sound nor are they recognisable as forming part of any conventional genre. They play as only bass and drums, with both members (Dylan Desmond on 6 string bass and Jesse Shreibman replacing the tragically deceased Adrian Guerra on drums) sharing vocal duties. As is standard for Bell Witch their set is comprised of a single, weaving, twisting, tortuous composition which has no real definable structure but manages to be both meditative and chilling at the same time. It is the kind of music you’re likely find yourself lost in long after the rest of the universe has tuned itself out. That is precisely what happened to the Basement crowd during Bell Witch’s set. For most of it there was a tacitly agreed silence and stillness and the effect was hypnotic.
When Conan eventually take the stage a little after eleven and the anticipation in the audience was palpable. This band’s sound is so fucking heavy it’s crushing. They play a good long set with the hooded Chris Fielding on bass a picture of malevolence to the right of the stage, impenetrable and threatening in the intensity of his performance. Their interaction with the audience is minimal except to offer some sincere thanks towards the end but in many ways they are a band whose music requires no explanation and can probably only be detracted from by any bantering designed to fill the silent moments between the grinding, lurching darkness in each piece. They play material off their latest offering, Existential Void Guardian, which does nothing to soften the sonic violence upon which they have built their reputation. If you can find a copy of the album, its worth exploring – even if only to see what it sounds like to be locked in a place where the sun can never shine and rats chew eternally on the corpses of broken dreams.