One of the few truly essential "war metal" albums (at least, for those already enamoured with this brand of bestial savagery), Conqueror's sole full-length is finally back in print on vinyl, this time as a definitive "20th Anniversary" version that includes all of the material that was included on the previous double CD version.

      Formed by former Cremation drummer James Read and Domini Inferi guitarist Ryan F?rster, Conqueror expanded upon the frenzied blackened death metal pioneered by Oath of Black Blood-era Beherit and fellow Ross Bay Cult maniacs Blasphemy, whipping their barbaric blast into even more bone-rattling extremes that could at times border on an almost noisecore-like level of sonic extremism. This was a direct precursor to the likes of Revenge (which rose from the ashes of Conqueror) and the berserker noisecore of Intolitarian, truly extreme music endowed with an uncompromising misanthropic worldview that made most black metal bands look like card-carrying members of UNICEF. Conqueror only released one album during their existence, and it's gathered here alongside the band's demo and compilation tracks, as well as their material from the split with Black Witchery, comprising the complete discography of the group; essential listening for anyone into Read's subsequent work with Revenge, and anyone obsessed with the most violent and depraved extremes of death metal.

      The first disc in the set features Conqueror's 1999 album War Cult Supremacy, their magnum opus of bestial blackened grind. This barbaric nine-song album still rattles the senses some fifteen years on, each song a relentlessly violent eruption of Forster's abrasive, acidic guitar sound and Read's maniacal whirlwind drumming, those grinding riffs splintering into seemingly random solo splatter and those weird glissando pick-slides that are a distinguishing feature of Conqueror's sound; the riffs seem carved out of a punk-like simplicity and ferocity, and Read's strangled, hysterical screams sound absolutely inhuman. That combination of hyperspeed drumming and grating concrete-mixer riffs brought an almost noisecore-level of sonic chaos to Conqueror's cyclonic death metal attack; indeed, this stuff feels as if it more closely shares DNA with the nuclear chaos of Scum-era Napalm Death, early Siege, and Repulsion than the black/death metal of its day.

      A shitload of bands would subsequently jump onto Conqueror's coattails trying to harness the bestial blast perfected on this album, but almost nobody has managed to even come close to capturing the foul, almost avant-garde noisiness that these guys belched out. Read's horrifying snarling screams can sometimes degenerate into weird electronically-processed vocal noises, and songs will suddenly collapse into blasts of over-modulated, reverb-drenched noise, or bizarre insectile buzzing will swarm across the depths of the mix. That stuff gives this a disturbing, alien feel, like the disgusting fluttering oscillator-like effects that beat their black wings beneath the churning deathblast of "Kingdom Against Kingdom", or the blasts of almost industrial pandemonium that erupt in the middle of the title track. While the riffs are certainly vicious, they are swept up in such a storm of distortion and blastbeat chaos that it all washes together into a blur of hateful sonic violence, the most punishing moments on the album arising when Read suddenly decelerates into one of his barbaric, almost tribal breakdowns amid that blur of blackened blastnoise.

      Disc two compiles everything else the band did, including the material from the 1997 Osmose compilation World Domination II, the split with Black Witchery, the 1996 demo tape Anti-Christ Superiority, and their cover of "Christ's Death" by Sarcofago. Even on the earliest material, Conqueror's sound was incredibly savage, and there's an almost industrial feel to some of the booming metallic percussion that thunders throughout these tracks. That demo from '96 in particular is something you need to hear if you're obsessed with the whole Ross Bay/bestial noise-metal aesthetic, just undiluted savagery from start to finish. In total, this collection is pretty much the last word in irradiated nuclear metal chaos, a distillation of the unending warfare that continues to enfold our planet into pure sound, and one of the few true essential entries into the "war metal" genre you're ever going to need.