Nikan Khosravi

Nikan “Siyanor” Khosravi is an Iranian heavy metal musician, songwriter and founder of the heavy metal band Confess.  Since 2010, he has been part of the band Confess, along fellow musician Arash Ilkhani, a socio-political group that through its music explores issues around society, politics, and war. In 2014 Khosravi founded the Opposite Records label to enable the band to produce its own work.

The band Confess was created when the musicians were still teenagers with Khosravi as the band’s frontman. In 2010, the band produced its first album, ‘Beginning of Dominion’, followed by four singles: ‘Encase Your Gun’(2012), that criticised the Iranian government’s crackdown on the 2009 ‘Green’ democracy movement, ‘Painter of Pain’ (2012), ‘This Love (Pantera Cover)’ (2013) and ‘Edge of Mind’ (2013). In 2014, the band released a 6-track EP, ‘Back to My Future 2/4.’

After being arrested and put on trial in 2015, the band received wide support from metal musicians from around the world. Khosravi stood trial in Iran on several charges, among them, blasphemy, political and anti-religious lyrics, illegal underground activity and interviews with illegal foreign radio stations. Khosravi fled to Turkey and later relocated to Harstad at the end of 2018, where he was joined a few months later by his bandmate Ilkhani. In a largely symbolic gesture, an Iranian judge sentenced Khosravi in absentia to 12 years in prison and 74 lashes.

Since the relocation to Harstad, Confess has regrouped and added three new band members, Roger Tunheim Jakobsen on drums in 2019, Steffen Normark on guitar and Edvard Sundquist on bass in 2020. In response to the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown of protests, Confess released the single ‘Army of Pigs’ in the hopes to spread awareness about what was happening. They are currently working on a new album, to be titled ‘Revenge At All Costs.’

More information about Khosravi’s music can be found on the band’s Instagram and Bandcamp pages.