The first sound you hear on Conjurer’s Unself isn’t distortion or a blast of double-kick drums. It’s a clean guitar, unguarded and almost hesitant. Within moments, that calm fractures into a wall of feedback and anguish. It’s a striking contrast, one that perfectly captures the album’s title and spirit: the unravelling of identity and the uneasy beauty in letting it happen.
When I lived in Birmingham, UK, I used to bump into Brady Deeprose from Conjurer at local shows. In their early days, the band felt like part of a vibrant underground scene brimming with potential. Years later, after moving to Montreal, I’ve seen them tear through sets here more than once and even chatted with them for Montreal Rocks. This November, I’ll be back on home soil at Damnation Festival in Manchester to see how this new chapter translates live. Something tells me it’s going to hit differently.
Following 2018’s Mire and 2022’s Páthos, Unself feels like both a continuation and a rupture. Where Mire was wild and defiant, and Páthos tightened the screws, this record breathes. It still hits hard, but it also leaves space for reflection, even silence. The sound is broader, more open, and somehow more human.
A lot of that comes from guitarist and vocalist Dani Nightingale, whose autism diagnosis and coming out as non-binary form the emotional core of Unself. It’s not a “concept album” in any calculated sense. It’s simply lived experience, poured into sound. “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through,” Dani sings on the opening title track, reworking a gospel lyric into something that feels both lost and liberated. What begins as quiet contemplation soon collapses under the weight of distorted guitars and guttural screams. It’s a sonic mirror to the record’s theme: self-recognition through destruction.
The partnership between Dani and Brady has always been Conjurer’s secret weapon. Their vocals intertwine like conflicting thoughts, one snarling, one soaring, neither winning the argument. On songs like “All Apart” and “There Is No Warmth,” their dynamic feels raw, immediate, and painfully real. Even when the band leans into sheer heaviness, you can sense the emotional thread running through every downstroke.
Producer Joe Clayton deserves credit for capturing that balance. The mix is surprisingly airy for a metal record this dense. You can hear the scrape of strings, the buzz of amps, the ghost of a breath before a scream. The acoustic interlude “A Plea” offers a brief but powerful pause, a moment of intimacy before the storm resumes with renewed force. When the band wants to crush, as on “The Searing Glow” or “Hang Them in Your Head,” they do it with conviction, but never for the sake of excess.
“Let Us Live” is the record’s emotional centrepiece, opening with a sample from Spanish trans activist and politician Carla Antonelli before erupting into one of Conjurer’s most affecting songs to date. It’s fierce, communal, and resolute, featuring guest vocals from friends of the band that turn it into something larger than self-expression. It’s a demand for empathy, carried on a wave of distortion and shared defiance.
By the time the closing track, “This World Is Not My Home,” revisits the gospel motif that frames the record, you realize Unself isn’t just about dissolution, but transformation. The edges blur, the noise fades, and what’s left feels strangely peaceful. To “unself” is to lose definition, to allow the world in, and Conjurer embody that surrender with startling vulnerability.
Unself isn’t their loudest record, but it’s their most revealing. The band has found power not just in impact, but in intent. Every note feels deliberate, every silence earned. There’s a sense of release here, not triumph, and that makes it all the more affecting.
When I first saw Conjurer live in Montreal, their sound felt like a controlled detonation. Now, it feels more like an exorcism. The energy is still there, but it carries a new kind of weight, one that speaks less of aggression and more of understanding. Unself is a record about what happens when you stop fighting who you are and start listening. It’s heavy in all the right ways and deeply human in the ones that matter most.
Unself is released via Nuclear Blast Records on 24 October 2025
Photo Credit: Matthieu Gill
