“I want to reach out to the people that don’t feel they’re seen”: How Conjurer crafted their most direct album ever

Three years on from 2022’s excellent Páthos, Conjurer have announced their return. On October 24, the Brit riff geniuses will drop their third album, Unself. It’s a wallopingly heavy record that finds the Midlands metal quartet getting more direct, both in their sonic attack where they’ve taken a slight step back from ultra-tech to find their groove again, and in the lyrics. Previously things had been open to interpretation and “what looks good on the page”, but now, there’s less ambiguity, more clarity.

Its themes take in isolation, disconnection and wondering on one’s own identity in the world. Even when it lashes out – like on killer lead single Hang Them In Your Head, about the inequality between the have-too-muches and the have-fuck-alls – it’s from a human, personal level. For singer/guitarist Dani Nightingale, it’s also an album that touches on their experiences of being diagnosed with autism and realising they’re non-binary.

We caught up with Dani and fellow shredder/shouter Brady Deeprose to get the lowdown on Conjurer’s glorious return, and how, for all this, they’ve discovered the fun of what they do again…

You’re announcing the album with Hang Them In Your Head. Why that one?
Brady Deeprose: “With a Conjurer record, you’re gonna get a lot of different flavours. As much as I think this record is something different for us, it still goes to a lot of different places. For a first look, we always try to pick something that, one, isn’t nine minutes long, and two, gives you a bit of an idea of some of the different stuff that’s on the record. This one’s maybe a little more aggressive than we’ve opened with on any of the other records, but I think emotionally it definitely gives you more of an idea of where we’re at. And it’s just a heavy banger, innit?”
Dani Nightingale: “It’s very pissed and upset, really. That’s the best way to describe it. When we were sat picking the ‘singles’, I’m not even sure Hang Them In Your Head was in the running at first. It’s shorter, and it’s way more pissed-off than our usual fare. It feels like a hardcore song, and it’s a little bit weird. It touches on a bunch of stuff that’s on the album, both in terms of themes and the melodies. While we were recording, we realised it made sense as something to lead with. If you start with a really long, really sad song, maybe that’ll turn people off.”

Reading the lyrics and how they deal with powerful people stepping on others to make themselves taller, guessing you’re not fans of billionaires?
Brady: “No, they suck.”

But there’s a lot more clarity there than in the past, when the lyrics were more ambiguous and metaphorical. Was that always the intention?
Brady: “Yes. That was literally a big part of mine and Dani’s conversations going into this record. So much of what we’ve done previously has been steeped in metaphor and really ornate language. We still love that stuff, and there’s still a lot of that on the record. But also, like you said, it’s not immediately apparent what the majority of our discography is about. This time, we felt like the topics that we wanted to touch on and the stuff that was actually pissing us off needs to be addressed a little bit more directly. It didn’t feel right to talk about stuff like wealth inequality and housing and general inequality across society by cloaking it in metaphor.
“That’s been a point of vulnerability for us in that we’ve never really talked about anything ‘real’. Or, everything has been either super cloaked in metaphor, or an idea of something, or some kind of internal struggle within us. This is a lot more external in its viewpoints. So, yeah, the obscene wealth that seems to drive a lot of society at the minute is something that neither Dani or I have ever felt very comfortable with. As soon as Dani came with the seed of what this song would be, we were in immediately.”
Dani: “We love flowery language, but it got to a point where, especially on the last album, we all poured so much into it, but we noticed that there were some people misinterpreting certain songs, or didn’t quite get what they songs were about. ‘I don’t even know if this song has a meaning…’ But we were like, ‘Oh, there’s a meaning.’ I thought, ‘Am I really getting my points across very well?’ Considering the themes of the album are rooted in connection and telling people that you’re not alone, it felt kind of wrong to do the same old thing with guarded metaphors. Interpretation is great, but we wanted to be more clear with what these songs are about and the message we’re trying to put across.”

You mention connection. In the lyrics, there’s stuff about feeling adrift, isolated, alone, unable to plug in to the world. At the start of the record, there’s the line: ‘This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.’ How did that theme come up as a link to the whole album?
Dani: “Those lyrics are from a century-old gospel song. The lyrics are more hopeful in their original form, which is that no matter how bad things are on this earth, like, I’ll be going to a better place. But when I first heard it during the pandemic, a cover by someone called Ben Babbitt And The Ramblers, I interpreted it as being a lot more despondent. And considering I don’t feel particularly at home in this world, it really spoke to me. If ever I had an acoustic guitar lying around, I’d play that song and it brought so much comfort. It resembled how I was feeling.
“That warring hopefulness and despondency was really interesting to me, and it was just a song that swirled around my head. It was never really like, ‘This needs to go on the album,’ it just sort of happened. I remember writing the last song, I started singing those lyrics and just realised that they fit, and it all made sense. I twisted it a bit, and made it a lot more specific to the things I was feeling, rather than the original intention of the song, but we realised it was the spine of the album.”

Dani, you’ve said that there’s a lot in there that touches on your journey of learning you’re autistic and non-binary. Is this more of a confident expression, knowing this new you?
Dani: “After realising I’m autistic and all that kind of stuff, me from back then – let’s say pre-2020 – feels like a completely different person in so many ways. I don’t feel connected to who I was back then in any way, even though I’m exactly the same person to some degree. This feels like the coming-out-of-the-shell album, I guess.
“The first one was four people getting together because we love playing riffs. The second one was: ‘Right, okay, we’re an actual band. Now, how do we write an album during a pandemic, an incredibly isolating time?’ Everything ended up a lot more internal, things we’d been going through. With this one, in keeping with the album title, there’s been this tremendous feeling of, like, not knowing who I am anyway, and struggling to figure that out. There are still issues, but I feel the most connected with myself and my body now, and my mind now, and the whole kind of thing with the record and the name of it is like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to sit and wallow as much as before.’ I wanted to look more externally and connect with people that are in similar positions and who feel the same.
“But as much as the album is informed by some personal experiences, it’s not about me. I don’t see this as me necessarily singing about me, and what’s happened to me. It’s about all the other people who don’t have the opportunity to get up and scream onstage. I want this to give those people a voice, essentially.”

Did being so direct make writing lyrics like that harder than when it was more open to interpretation?
Dani: “It felt very fluid and natural. When we were doing demos, Noah [See, drummer] was very, very adamant about getting some vocal ideas down. I thought, ‘Well, I gotta come up with lyrics first,’ and then, annoyingly, my depression and anxiety just kind of forced me into it. I had a very, very bad time, and it gave me a lot of time to sit and kind of get my thoughts together, process everything and get down what I wanted to say. So as much as it’s not fun having mental health issues, I think I came up with some pretty good lyrics out of it…
“I want to reach out to the people that don’t feel they’re very seen. For so much of my life, I’ve not felt very seen or understood and have been very scared of a lot of things. Even being in this band, it’s taken a lot of pushing myself and trusting other people to go out and do a month-long tour. That kind of shit scared me to death when we first started. Throughout my life, my family’s been like, ‘You can’t trust anyone, people are out to get you,’ that sort of thing. Actually going out there, that’s not really what it’s like. As much as the world is a fucking shithole, the people in it can be awesome. I want the this album and the lyrics and everything to go out to the people that feel alone, feel misunderstood, feel othered. I want them to have an outlet. I want them to feel empowered in how disenfranchised we all are.”

Musically, it’s more direct than last time as well…
Brady: “That was a conscious decision when we started writing, to play less notes. We found ourselves touring Páthos being like, ‘Holy fucking shit. Some of this stuff is not easy, and it’s not always fun to play live.’ You want to make a really good record, and you want to challenge yourself, but we then have to play those songs for the next however many years. The intention behind making this record was: ‘Let’s make this stuff fun.’ And also, take our own sanity into account as part of the writing process. If I can sacrifice five per cent of a riff to make it 50 per cent more enjoyable, that’s a no-brainer.”
Dani: “Oh god. I love Yan [Krause, former drummer], but he didn’t half make the last album difficult to do. He would write guitar parts on keyboard and then just force us to learn how to play the things. He did a good job, but there are certain points where it’s like, ‘I don't feel I can really get into playing this song live, because I’ve got to stand stock-still and make sure I’m getting it 100 per cent right.’ There was a lot more of a vibes approach to writing the riffs. It’s just what feels good as well as sounds good. We’re not particularly virtuosic people. We want to get in a room, we want to play riffs, and we want to jump around. This is going to sound mean on Jan, but we’re kind of reclaiming the fun in the band again.”

There’s a load more doom bits in there, too…
Brady: “Yeah. The working title for the last track was: Pallbearer? I Hardly Know Her! That would have been a weird twist at the end. We love the doomy bits.”
Dani: “But it’s about doing something that’s engaging and not just really, really long. It’s cool to have those bits just in their own space, breaking things up, rather than just going on really slowly for ages.”
Brady: “A full hour-long doom record of just slow riffs is too much for me. If we did that, it’d be beating the same horse to the point where it doesn’t feel heavy or slow anymore, because all you can do is turn the distortion up and slow it down. I feel like we try to capture some energy in it and kind of focus it a little bit more. This is definitely the best doomy stuff we’ve done on a record, hands-down.”

Unself is due out on October 24 via Nuclear Blast Records. Conjurer tour the UK in November – get your tickets now.

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