Confess (band)

History

Confess came together in 2010 when Nikan Khosravi founded the group, with Arash Ilkhani joining shortly after. The band describes its sound as a mix of groove, nu metal, NWOAHM, and thrash. They had put out two records before being taken into custody on 10 November 2015 and placed in solitary confinement. Following their arrest, the pair risked execution after being accused of blasphemy for allegedly creating Satanic music and giving interviews to foreign radio stations. Their second album, In Pursuit of Dreams, contained songs like "Teh-Hell-Ran" and "I'm Your God Now," which Iran’s strict Islamic government deemed blasphemous. The charges against them reportedly included blasphemy, opposing the system, running an unauthorized band and label in a Satanic metal and rock style, writing lyrics that were anti-religious, atheist, political, and anarchistic, and talking to banned foreign radio stations. By January 2017, Amnesty International’s Iran researcher Raha Bahreini stated that no band members were facing execution. Khosravi and Ilkhani applied for political asylum in Norway and were granted it. On 9 July 2019, the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran gave them a combined prison term of 14 and a half years for the offense of playing metal, with Khosravi also receiving 74 lashes. Today, both musicians live in Norway and keep making music. They have brought in two local players, Erling Malm and Roger Tunheim Jakobsen, for their touring shows. In November 2019, they dropped the track "Army of Pigs!" and planned a new album called Revenge at All Costs. That album finally came out on 21 January 2022, after a two-year delay.