Nuclear.Cult.Supremacy

The year was 2014. Conqueror had been long gone at that point, and besides two demos, a split, a compilation, and one studio album, it seemed like Conqueror was just another case of a great band that died out quickly to make way for Revenge. However, in Berlin, when NWN did their fourth Nuclear War Now! Fest, an unanticipated band returned, and that band was Conqueror. That's right, in an unexpected twist, James Read and Ryan Förster briefly brought back the band to play out their first and last live performance. And with a help of Chris "Vermin" Ross and Timothy "Haasiophis" Grieco, they all worked together to put out one hell of a live show.

In order to understand what makes this performance truly great, we have to check out the first song they played "Infinite Majesty", the same song that also opened their only studio album "War Cult Supremacy". Structurally, it plays pretty much the same as in the album, but in this live album, it's somehow even more rawer and intense than the studio album. Due to the poor rip from the live video "War.Cult.Supremacy Live", the overall production sounds very weak. The guitar and drums mainly overpower the sound, and Grieco's vocals sound drowned out in the song. While this could be seen as a bad thing, Conqueror's strategy of putting out the most raw, powerful, and even unconventional war metal out there has worked well for them in the past, and this raw production of theirs makes the guitar riffs sound more aggressive and the drumming more hateful than ever. The songs "War Cult Supremacy", "Blood Hammer", "Hammer of Antichrist", and "Domitor Invictus" are especially fantastic at this, since it sounds like they were able to fit in even more crazy moments, particularly in the guitar department. At surface, this doesn't sound too much different from what we're used to with Conqueror, but because of the low quality of the production, it only further enforces how brutal and intense these tracks are.

But possibly one of the most striking changes here is the vocals. While James Read has been a go-to when it comes to vocals in the recordings, for this live concert, Grieco was given the honor of doing the vocals, along with Vermin doing the backing vocals. And all I gotta say is, he actually lives up to the standard that James set in. Take a look at the song "Hammer of Antichrist" for example, which is one of my favorite Conqueror tracks. Grieco's shrieks sound absolutely maddening, as his mixing of the shrieks and gurgles give him a crazed personality that makes him sound like he hates everything and wants to burn it all down. Vermin's backing vocals are also just as good, as in tracks like "Kingdom Against Kingdom", his evil laughter further adds to the creepy and unsettling atmosphere of the track. Pretty much every single time the vocals appear on this album, they sound intense, and they flow really well to the psychotic instrumentals.

However, as much as I adore this record, I can't exactly give this a perfect 100% for a couple of reasons. One of the biggest issues for me is that for some reason, they left out the tracks "Chaos Domination (Conquer the Enslaver)" and the cover for Slaughter's "The Curse". While I can kinda see them not including the latter track since it's just a more intense version of the original, I'm not really sure why Chaos Domination was left out. Chaos Domination was already an intense and wild track in the WCS album, and I'd be really interested to see how that song would've sounded like live. There are also a couple of hiccups in Grieco's vocals, like in "Domitor Invictus" where he kinda shrieks a little too fast in certain moments of the track. But while those minor mistakes in the vocals are rare and forgivable, I still can't really get past the fact that Chaos Domination is not on the setlist.

But despite one lost track, that doesn't stop this entire live album from being incredible. The instrumentals are pushed to their absolute limits here, with the poor production only further enhancing them, and Grieco's insane vocals reflect on that vigorous sound and is on par with James's vocals. As great of a comeback the show was, that would also sadly be the last time Conqueror played, as the band would break up shortly after the concert. Not to mention that while a live video of it all was released two years later, the full audio of the concert won't be released until earlier this week. But as a huge fan of Conqueror, the wait for "Nuclear.Cult.Supremacy" was absolutely worth it. If you're a fan of some bestial black metal being performed live in their full glory, I highly recommend you check this album out.