You might recall in our interview last September that Conan guitarist Jon Davis alluded to recording in December for an upcoming split with Slomatics to be released on Head of Crom Records. Well, it looks like that split has finally come to fruition (with badass artwork, no less), and will be released May 9. Fans of downtuned ultra-rumble, take note.

Says the PR wire:

Head of Crom Records is proud to announce that the Conan vs. Slomatics split album will be released on May 9. The album is currently being mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Isis, Earth), and will be released on a limited edition sky blue 12”.

Conan are a drop-F tuned doom behemoth hailing from Liverpool, whose debut release Horseback Battle Hammer (2010 Throne/Aurora Borealis) received rave reviews, and is now all but sold out. They have teamed up with Northern Irish riff-worshippers Slomatics to create a dual-pronged sludge attack in the form of this sensationally heavy split album.

The fantastic artwork is courtesy of Tony Roberts, who has also done designs for the likes of High on Fire, Electric Wizard and Unearthly Trance.

A CD version of the release will also be available via Aurora Borealis.

Conan will be supporting Buzzov*en at The Well, Leeds on April 4.

The above quote, adapted from Robert E. Howard‘s The Phoenix on the Sword, more or less sums up the mission of UK doomers Conan. Throw something in there about playing slow and loud and piling riffs like cinderblocks on the ribcages of their listeners, and you’d be right in there.

Conan‘s first full-length, Horseback Battle Hammer (vinyl through Throne Records, CD on Aurora Borealis), remains one of the heaviest records I’ve heard all year. It is thunderous — not the way you think of music as thunderous, but literally like thunder — and in just four songs, the trio of Jon Davis (guitar), John (bass/vocals) and Paul (drums) manages to roar onto the international stage, crushing those in their path with massive, amplified undulations.

As Davis‘ guitar is such a huge part of what makes Horseback Battle Hammer so incredibly heavy, I just had to ask how he managed to get that tone. Not only does he lay out his full gear setup, but in our interview, he also discusses how the band got together, their plans for shows and recording through the end of the year, and just how he sees Conan growing in the future.

You’ll find the Q&A after the jump. Doom on.

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Released via Aurora Borealis in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, Conan’s thematic Horseback Battle Hammer is every bit as heavy as the title suggests. This kind of lumbering über-doom I like to call brown metal, because it rumbles so low you could shit your pants from the vibrations. Seriously, listening to the UK band’s EP – you might recall their Battle in the Swamp demo was on their MySpace not so long ago – is like having your head squashed by a boulder-wielding giant, and I’m not usually one for cheesy hyperbolic imagery, so you know Horseback Battle Hammer is heavy.

Conan, comprised of guitarist/vocalist Jon Davis, bassist/vocalist John McNulty and drummer Paul O’Neill, present four tracks on Horseback Battle Hammer, centering their work largely around the writings of Robert E. Howard. They’re true to their namesake, to say the least. Opener “Krull” is slow and devastating, reaching over nine minutes before offering any kind of major tempo shift or payoff. It’s a great opener for Horseback Battle Hammer, because it sets up a half-speed Melvins vibe that Conan build on with the speedier and more active “Satsumo.” You could say there’s a Torche influence, but what the two bands really have in common is a mega-thickness of guitar tone, and where Torche uses it as a go-to for heavy parts, Conan bases more or less the band’s whole sound around it. Davis’ guitar is monstrous, both when affecting the doomed pace of  “Krull” or the more middling speed of “Satsumo,” which at 5:32 is also the shortest song on Horseback Battle Hammer by nearly a full two minutes.

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It was my return journey to The Sound Garden in the beery Fell’s Point section of Baltimore, and in addition to an Al B. Sure in store performance (it was wrapping up just as I walked in and I got a hug from him as he was leaving the makeshift stage), I happened upon the self-titled album by Californian experimentalists Journey to Ixtlan. It’s one of few albums I’ve purchased in recent history that when I found it was both brand new and totally unrecognized. If I’m going to take a chance on something, usually it’s used and cheaper. Journey to Ixtlan (Aurora Borealis) set me back $18, and for that reason, I’m not going to give it a full review. Not fair to anyone who sends me records for free.

Nonetheless, as a bit of buried treasure, Journey to Ixtlan bridges the long gap between pre-”Los” Natas and SunnO))), with a dark Southwestern drone permeated by chants and distant instrumentation. Not that I knew that at the time. All I knew was what I read on the sticker on the front of the digipak (which I fortunately found came from the label’s website), and it went as follows:

Riding out of the desert like the ghosts of future past in a dune buggy powered by dreams come Journey to Ixtlan. Totally heavy, very psychedelic, and utterly sun kissed this is the sound of New Age Doom & Occult Desert Rock. Journey to Ixtlan are an anonymous badass rock band of desert dwellers, in some cases living outside the law at the very margins of society, who converge infrequently to render their physical surroundings in psychotropic sound. Their heavy sound owes as much to Doom Metal as it does to Psychedelia, as much to Now as it does to Then, as guitar, bass, drums, keys and vocal chants intertwine like shamanic smoke.

They trimmed out some of the stuff about purported philosophical connections to Carlos Castaneda‘s 1972 book of the same name (Castaneda being a pupil of Don Juan Matus — taken as a moniker by a Peruvian desert rock band), but honestly, after reading, “Riding out of the desert like the ghosts of future past in a dune buggy powered by dreams,” there was no way I wasn’t going to buy this record. I also got Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep. No regrets.

If you want to check out Journey to Ixtlan for yourself and see if they’re worth $18 of your hard-earned, you can do so at this location.