Ransom Note
Building up to their upcoming album, Iranian metal band Confess releases “Ransom Note”. With the sound of strength in the face of oppression, the track transports us to frontman Nikan Khosravi’s distressful exile days in Turkey. It features some of the most prominent death metal sounds of the album, mastered by Grammy-nominated producer Machine (Lamb of God, Suicide Silence, Miss May I, and many others).
“I wrote the lyrics of this song (like most of the lyrics in this album) while I was in Turkey seeking asylum.”, Khosravi explains. “Those days were the darkest period of my life. But as you can hear in the song, I was super determined about what I’m going to do in my future.”
The sound of Confess in this single further develops the style of their second album “In Pursuit of Dreams” (2015). Soon after releasing it, Khosravi and fellow band member Arash Ilkhani were arrested by the Iranian government on blasphemy charges.
Khosravi’s beliefs remained firm after spending over a year in one of Tehran’s harshest prisons and risking execution. “There are not enough forces in this world to oppress a man forever”, he tells us. “Ransom Note” is the voice of those who refuse to stay submissive: “If people in a society seek unity and want to change their future, nothing can stop them!”
The dominance of melody in “Ransom Note” is a clear sign of death metal tendencies. The intro and main riff came from a live improvisation recorded in 2014. Khosravi liked the way it sounded at a fast tempo and used it as the base material for the single.
Nikan Khosravi and Arash Ilkhani obtained refugee status in Norway in 2018 and have been playing across the country with a new line-up. Confess recently opened for Mayhem at Festspillene i Nord.
“Ransom Note” will be released in November. The single is part of the band’s upcoming album “Revenge at All Costs”.
Cover art by Paul Setti
Press photos by Camilla Norvoll
