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Confessor > Unraveled > Reviews
Confessor - Unraveled

Control Exercised by Heavy Steam-Rolling Supervision - 93%

bayern, August 3rd, 2022

Listened to Loincloth the other day, both albums… lost myself for the umpteenth time in these schizoid bizarre all-instrumental equations… which do remind of the guys’ first outing; this nervy psychotic layout can’t be emulated freely, especially the one from this mythical first instalment. But no, I prefer to be on Confessor wavelength… any time. Even when it’s most unclear when another opus would be unravelled from their camp.

The other sad fact is that we only have two albums to revel in while waiting for the potential third ascension… the debut, the condemned one, this impossibly original unorthodox blend of nervy hectic tech-thrash rushes and steam-rolling elephantine doomisms… who could possibly think of mixing those two?! And who could possibly think of putting a most inimitable dramatic high-pitched throat like Scott Jeffreys to provide the vocal accompaniment to this… and who could decide to leave this advanced masterpiece lying in wait for a sequel for whole 14 years… crimes crimes, sins sins, geniuses geniuses…

those of you with fear of flying must have skipped the guys’ next venture, Fly Machine, a modern groovy post-thrash stint that produced a self-titled in 1997, exuding just a tad of its predecessor’s audacious veneer. Nope, this flying machine wasn’t going to last in the air for very long, the pilots… sorry, musicians tucking it away in the hangar, also covering it with said Loincloth, but leaving it without a musical stimulus for a while.

Yes, the launching of the Loincloth stunt was postponed cause the guys had voted to revive the Confessor saga, with the album reviewed here. The tussle from the previous album has obviously been won by the doom plateau cause this is by-and-large a tribute to the slow-motion side of the metal spectre, traditional doom at its finest, said genre sailing smoothly, seldom perturbed by spastic rhythmic jolts this time. The band set the doom bar sky-high with the grave academic opener “Cross the Bar” and refuse to look away, nailing a hammering riff after another, the more vivid flair of “Until Tomorrow” moving the spirits around, but those frivolous bounces are far from enough to tumble the stomping gravity of cuts like “Wigstand” and “Blueprint Soul”, or to smear the sprawling elegiac grandeur of the exquisite “Sour Times”, a doom metal hymn to end all doom metal hymns. Logically, after this last very lofty model, bigger dynamics gets exercised, and the band remind of their first coming with the ironically-titled “Hibernation”, a weird but thoroughly arresting shredder which gives doom both a vivacious and fearful name, also with the help of “Strata of Fear”, a dirgy creepy technicaller which disrupts the doom canons with an unmitigated gust of speedy turbulence, the latter growing into a pot of sizzling crescendos for a bit on the bonus track “The Secret”, a possible leftover from the first effort, a superb near-thrashy march which still gets mortified by the prevalent slow-motion procession at some point, but defying it bravely at the end with a portion of near-headbanging technical riffage.

Greatly done, the band still dooming with the finest out there after a really long break, sounding more composed and less fidgety, Jeffreys also submitting his vocal bravado to this less extravagant layout, pitching it higher more sparingly, but always ready to ensure bigger drama from his department if necessary. However, regardless of the man’s near-indispensable, also unquestionable presence in the team it’s largely his fault for the band’s next-in-line big gap of inactivity: he’s relocated to China, which makes the recording process not very easy. Guess there’s one reason why his colleagues decided to carry on with the vocal-less Loincloth initiative…

both units are active as of present, and although I like feeling my mind dishevelled and boggled by the instrumental abstractisms from the Loincloth arsenal, I would never replace this unpredictable, turbulent cup of doom that the irregular Confessor saga could serve me… and I’m ready to wait, and wait, and wait… by being repeatedly condemned and unravelled in the mean time… in that exact order.

Brilliant, Powerful, Melancholic Doom - 94%

orionmetalhead, May 2nd, 2006

I'm a person who takes my music pretty seriously. If I hear good things about a band, I'm going to check the band out. I was hearing alot of praise for Unraveled calling it a tech-doom masterpeice and a brilliant work of heavy metal and whatnot. After listening to this album, I have an obligation to myself to decide if I enjoyed the album or not and as hard as I tried to judge without being influenced by others, it was hard to disagree with the rumors I had heard. This album is completely awesome. There are so many subtleties that push this album to greatness. Fantastic vocals, brilliant guitar work, and a bass and drum rhythm section that leaves no beat unbeaten.

I can't quite decide what Scott Jeffrey's vocals sound like. They are really hard to compare to anything. Layne Staley does work yet only at times. Other times, the vocals sound more like Tim Aymar from Chuck Schuldiner's side project Control Denied if he was singing one or two octave's lower. Sometimes the vocals waver between the two. Sometimes they waver between wavering between the two and not wavering at, forming a vocal black hole of categorization. Aparently he is going to be singing on the new Watchtower album also and his vocals with Ron Jarzombek's crafty guitar philosophy is an almost unimaginably perfect combination. Back to Confessor. The vocals are great, full, they are full of a melanholic intensity and emotion that rips into your very being. Range wise, this album spans all frequencies of the sound spectrum. At times, high pitched wails are the order of the day and other times low wins out instead. Overall, it is a perfect blend of both the low, the high, and the strangest clean vocal style I have heard in a long time.

Musically, this album takes the prize in a vast array of areas. Yes, there is the signature Confessor time signature manipulation. Yes, there is the estranged guitar melodies. Yes the drummer destroys the fabric of any drumming handbook. Yes the bassist pummels through every riff like twelve elephants fighting over a 3 inch watering hole. Shawn McCoy and Brian Shoaf's playing creates melodies that we never even knew existed. Completely ridiculous riffage is at work on this album and these two twist each riff until they fold over and over infinite times into themselves. Like trying to follow the winding path of a peice of spaghetti through your pasta with your eyes, each riff becomes another, flows into each other riff seamlessly. My mind is boggled by the fact they remember all the riffs. Steve Shelton is one hell of a drummer. My god. He has to be one of the most talented yet overlooked drummers on the face of this earth. Every fill is completely different. The sporadic double bass placement is top notch and never off. Tight. Ridiculous. If drums could talk to their drummers his drums would say something like, "Hey, steve... what are you doing man??" Then he would hit the drum that talked to him. And it would sound perfect because he has that ability were he can hit things that werent even on his drumset and still make it sound perfect. All told, listening to the drumming in songs like Hibernation prooves how ridiculously talented he is. Now, Cary Rowells, must be doing some basswork to rival that of twenty bassists playing at once. And, he is. Somehow he follows the drums and the guitars, swtiching off between following one and the other. Altogether, these are five guys who when they come together to create, they do more than create. They create and destroy all musical barriers at the same time. Bravo Confessor Bravo.

Songwise. Each song is ridiculous and awesome. It would be impossible to talk about each one. Basically, Hibernation is one of my favorites. Until Tomorrow and Blueprint Soul are also killer tracks. Listen to the whole album, each song is incrediblely monstrous in sound and attitude. Together, these songs show a band who are completely in tune with what they want to create and want to sound like. Perfectly placed breaks, solos, leads and harmonies abundant, this album will tear, and carve out a place distincly its own in your mind. Like a virus slowly eating away until it has conquered all of you. Confessor have created a masterpeice. Hopefully, they will create another and real soon.