Doom metal is usually associated with underwhelming rhythm playing, or background folly that the guitarists sit on top of. Bassist Cary Rowells and drummer Steve Shelton didn’t have any of that nonsense, having an influential role in the progression of each song. Shelton is one of the most underrated metal drummers of the early ‘90s. A claim like that might seem a little hasty, but check out the music video at the bottom of the column for proof of that statement’s validity.
For virgin ears experiencing Confessor for the first time with this video, it’s like getting splashed with cold water after a week-long nap. Shelton is the first musician heard, as his fills fade in to crushing guitars and the obscenely-high wails of Scott Jeffreys. Jeffreys has a pitch that could make cats screech in agony, and it’s not surprising if listeners are turned off by his voice. It’s an element to the music that, while at first doesn’t seem to fit in, becomes more inviting as the album goes on.
A steady mid-tempo pace is where the band’s comfort lies, as the guitars fire off chunky riffs and the drums go off into unorthodox time signature changes. The technical side of the band gives off a wide assortment of dynamics, especially on spacious cuts like “Alone” and “Suffer.” “Uncontrolled” does jump into another speed, though it’s only a minor reprieve tucked into the middle of the record.
No mystical creatures or occultist chanting are done by the band; this was as down-to-earth as a metal band gets. Confessor are no natural poets, and there is a tendency to repeat the same verses and choruses multiples within the course of a song. However, there are some hopeless and dark subjects, like “Today I lost my will to live/It simply spilled out onto the floor/Next to the pile of broken dreams,” from “The Stain.” It’s disconcerting to hear these types of lyrics from a vocalist who could have headed an ‘80s power metal group.
Confessor would fade away as quickly as they came onto the scene. The title track got rotation on Headbanger’s Ball, but the band broke up before the release of their second album. They did reunite a few times, even releasing an album in 2005, Unraveled. Their sound had trouble finding an audience; too technical for doom metal fanatics and too slow-paced for technical metal followers. Condemned deserves some new-founded attention for their genre-bending spectacle of a debut album. For putting a spin on traditional doom metal, Condemned gets the nod for this week’s Retro Recommendation.
