My copy arrived today, at last. But I’ve been listening to the album fairly heavily for the last two weeks. I waited to review it until the cd + tshirt arrived. Cd is a digipack with just an inlay cover. The artwork (which Connelly handled) is fine; the silver on grey colour scheme suits the album (without giving a substantive reason for saying so). The tshirt is cool and fits good, light cotton.
The album:
Over fifty three minutes of claustrophobic, deranged wanderings puncuated by a stomping ass kicker and a dark rock classic. In between we get three long, rambling episodes that drift in and out, building and closing, rising and falling away.
‘Mistaken for Cops’ pummels its way forward, the guitars rip out from the steamroller, the subdued vox perfectly complement the avalanche of noise that’s underneath them. Connelly sings of danger in a low but confident tone, as a figure can do when he has a massive force behind him. Don’t fuck with this song
‘Along Came the Dogs’, the longest cut on the album, is a warbling, demented trip to somewhere you may not want to be. Punctured howling layered with low undertones that are anything but comforting. The song makes you feel helpless as it’s going off somewhere and is dragging you with it, whether you want to go or not. The second half of the song has more motion with rattling drums that threatens to control the song but never does.
‘The Listener’ is the most restrained of the five. Running at eleven minutes, this one sits best where it is - in the middle, at a point where the album is not concerned with moving forward but is happy to languish on it’s subject. Connelly becomes more lucid and you begin to pay attention to what he’s saying. His piano drops notes every nine seconds while the guitar hangs and screeches out every so often. Near the end of the song the drums get a little more pronounced, but as with the preceding songs it threatens action but hangs back before it can burst out.
‘Dead Tenements’ follows. It rises out of the purgatory of The Listener with slow but atmosphere filling guitars while Connelly, now more elevated than ever, sings of being “still on a bender trying to remember.” While the previous two songs verged on violence Dead Tenements gets more riled up, and after six minutes, strips its teeth and snarls for a few minutes (there are fat lambs outside head butting each other while one randy one tries to take advantage of the preoccupied duelists). The drumming rambles on to bring the song to a close.
Then comes ‘Chlorine and Crystal’, the climax and resolution to the nightmare. This song oozes pain; despondent lyrics delivered in howls, piercing guitar notes bring a feeling of resignation - what came before was ominous but uncertain, there may have been some glimmer of a hope through the murkiness, but now Chlorine and Crystal is singing at your funeral. The eulogy/reflection continues until during the closing minutes the tension lifts and it now feels relieved. Is this acceptance of no return or is it some door left ajar that tells you it’s not all over…
Turning Lead Into Gold With The High Confessions is a slow burning, prog-industrial journey to somewhere that’s never reached. Like a bird who shows you a bit of skin but not too much, you want to see more. I want to hear more from The High Confessions and I’m stoked for the next album (which is already recorded).
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