DEEPLY CONFUSED – Isolated

Deeply Confused is a freshly formed band that counts two birthdays and one demo release that saw the light of the day in the summer of 2006. The core of this Canadian band comprises the lead guitarist Stephan Filion and Gabrielle Morin who sits behind the drum kit (indeed she is a female drummer!). The self recorded and released three track demo was simply entitled Demo 2006 and was the first musical product from the Canadian sextet.

So, in order to take full advantage of the momentum built through the positive media reaction to the demo, Deeply Confused put together the EP in question that reached Metal Express Radio under the title Isolated.

The EP opens with the atmospheric intro “On The Lake Shore” that quickly gives its place to the solid drum sound that commences the Death Metal based assault. “Torments In The Shade Of The Totem Pole” has a ton-heavy backbone that reveals the band’s prime Death Metal influences expressed through the compact riffs and the matching deep growls. In fact here lies the first (minor) complaint; although the vocals are as brutal as they should be they are over-distorted and thus lose some of the power, sounding most of the time blurred. The track also comes with sophisticated guitar work that obviously flirts with the Progressive side of Death Metal without denying the Heavy Metal less distorted fills. The staccato rhythm is perfect for headbanging and built the required tension that bursts during the nice finger bleeding solo.

“The Thirtieth Thorn” continues in the same pattern and reveals some production and mixing weaknesses since the track sound overloaded. Actually, with this production the keyboards are totally buried and offer almost nothing in the entire album. Gabrielle has nothing to be jealous of her male fellow drummers (actually for some it’s the other way around) and proves her strength and definitely stamina through the intense drum pedaling and the smooth tempo changes.

The overall sound comes a little bit clearer in “Stuck In The Traffic With Kip Winger” while it welcomes the nice bass guitar signature and the melodic keyboards in the back. In this track the lyrics stole all the glory that describes a really gore scene under Kip Winger’s music (possibly with the love song “Seventeen”).

After some CD spins this EP grows inside and gradually reveals some really nice and brutal elements that cannot go unnoticed. The band seems to have composing potentials that will be fully deployed in a future full length release that should have a better production than this one. The last track of the EP is an instrumental featuring some nice guitar phrases – with an Iron Maiden lining – and the full keyboard ‘package’ that was missed in the rest of the tracklist.

The Metal scene is used to getting very good bands from Canada and Deeply Confused are not the ones to change this tradition. It is certain that they will work even more to establish their own sound and will feel more secure under less distorted vocals; although the last remark is based on a personal taste.