Just seven months after their formation, Confessions Of A King have released their debut EP. While a baby of similar age would be barely moving onto solid foods, COAK’s press release proudly boasts of the band’s meteoric rise to “thousands of followers on Twitter” – though on this evidence Confessions Of A King would do well to slow things down a bit.
Instrumentally, ‘Monarch’ is typical modern post-hardcore fare – drop tunings and riffs that border on djent are both firmly in place. However, Confessions Of A King neatly sidestep the generic scream/clean vocal juxtaposition that so often plagues the genre, instead opting for a purely clean vocal along the lines of Sleeping With Sirens or Exit Ten.
Sadly, where this approach fails is in the weakness of vocalist Dan Sams’ voice. Pitchy, flat and consistently off-key, his voice stands out against its musical backdrop for all the wrong reasons. While not necessarily a terrible singer, the pairing of Sams’ voice with the drop tuned chugging of his bandmates simply does not work, and the majority of the EP feels like a terrible mash-up of vocals and instrumentals from two different songs.
On the whole, the EP’s four tracks merely serve as a reminder that writing good riffs and writing good songs are two very different talents. Neither Sams nor his band are completely devoid of talent, but they make terrible bedfellows.
Their ability to produce a debut EP in such a short space of time will be praised by some – but with ‘Monarch’ Confessions Of A King have stumbled, rather than stormed, out of the starting gate.
TOM CONNICK