Knowing in advance that The High Confessions were a super-group featuring Chris Connelly (Ministry), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Sanford Parker (Minsk), and Jeremy Lemos (White/Light), my expectations for this album were high before even listening to it.  Sadly, the gold these musical alchemists created in their previous efforts was decidedly lacking from this album, which fell far short of my expectations.

The album begins promisingly enough with the track “Mistaken for Cops,” featuring a groovy post-rock sound that I would expect based on the pedigree of the band.  Things go rapidly downhill on the second track, “Along Come the Dogs,” which clocks in at a “get on with it already” length of 17:07, with well over two minutes of virtual dead air spread throughout the song.  Things finally get interesting at about 8:06 on this track, and stay so for the nine remaining minutes, adding in layers and layers of vocals and dynamic sounds, but most people will skip to the next track long before reaching the interesting part in this 17-minute test of attention spans.

While the experiment in minimalism that is “Along Come the Dogs” is 17 minutes of my life that I’d like back, the track “The Listener” which follows is a high point on this album.  Another song that plays with minimalism, “The Listener” features just enough going on to keep you paying attention, and the repetition of the sounds creates an almost hypnotic groove that gets in your head, and gets your ears perked up for the vocals when they occur.

Two further tracks round out the album, “Dead Tenements” and “Chlorine and Crystal.” Both sound like noise/post-rock fusion songs, with none of the groove of “Mistaken for Cops” or the hypnotic repetition of “The Listener.”  “Dead Tenements” is a droning track featuring lots of cymbals, and vocals similar to that of “The Listener,” but lacks the power that made “The Listener” such an earworm.  “Chlorine and Crystal” has a lot going on throughout, and stands with “The Listener” and “Mistaken for Cops” as among the strongest tracks on the album.

It remains to see if this collaboration will be more than a one-off deal, but from my perspective, unless you are a diehard fan of all the past bands the members have been in, you might be better off passing on this one.

(Relapse Records, PO Box 2060, Upper Darby, PA 19082)