Awaken is the debut album by German heavy rockers Confusion Master, a combo of relative unknowns from Rostow who are straight out of the blocks with an unashamed tribute to early Black Sabbath. Loaded with slow and low grooves that come on like a storm of rolling thunder powered by high-grade herbs, spoken word film samples and slabs of heavy psych, it’s powerful stuff that is more than enough to reanimate the inner 14 year-old metal-head in anyone.
Gunnar Arndt’s distorted guitars, largely unintelligible vocals from Stephan Kurth, that are buried deep in the mix and Stephen Gottwald’s slow and considered, Earth-shaking beats are the flavours on offer from the epic “Witch Pollution” onwards, as a powerful bass-line summons waves of sonic squall and stoner riffs. “I am in a world of shit” announces Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, as Confusion Master launch into the heavy battery of “Northern Midnight Ghost Dance”. Robert De Niro’s Louis Cyphre from Angel Heart, intones how “Only the soul is immortal”, as the band rip into the 11-minute “Goner Colony” with its titanic riffage and hypnotic groove, while “In The Shadow Of The Bong” pours petrol on the Sabbath-esque mania and burns the house down. Make no mistake, this is primal, unflashy rock music with a whoozy groove and a muscular beat that is firmly rooted in the early 70s.
For all its Sabbath worship though, Awaken is no one-note wonder. “Reapers Fist” lays down some Southern Boogie, albeit with the heaviest of bass from Mathias Klein that almost bends it completely out of shape and the title track lets in some space with a looped “Silent night/Bloody night” sample that guides things to an end over a distorted guitar drone. So, while Awaken may not be doing anything new, it really is a chunk of doom metal with some real bite.
