SD // BANDS

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Heartboiled
Trust No One Records proofs that they have a talent for releasing great bands once again. Kongh is one of those bands that makes you always use capital letters when you write their name because they are so massive! KONGH! Kongh are a three-piece from Sweden and play a quite unique blend of Heavy Doom/Sludge/Metal. The three of them have different musical backgrounds and I think you can sort those out in some parts pretty well.

Kongh have slow and gigantic riffs as well as some sweet melodic work. The drums are pounding and intense thuds and the bass rolls like thunder. Everything could remind of comrades such as Cult Of Luna or Switchblade, but as well as those bands, Kongh (KONGH) keep a certain uniqueness to themselves which results out of their instrumental work and the vocals. Kongh's guitar work is more versatile than it seems at first sight, there is not only slow riffs in a row, the guitars seem to be very playful for a genre like this. Feedback, effects, faster guitar lines, different styles, you name it. The vocals range from harsh to low screaming to nearly clean singing (reminded me of Cathedral, a bit more pressed and dark) and on Zihuatanejo the drums turn up the speed as well.

Something you'll have to listen to for yourselves. I am putting this out for the next fall/winter and I am already excited. Great record! Massive, heavy and destructive. Artwork by Seldon Hunt, so it looks pretty as well.

Mashnote
Kongh is a Sludgeband. In 90% of the cases that's not a good sign from me. Since the day I discovered Crowbar and later Neurosis, there was a long line of bands that all sounded the same. "Heavy sludgehammer" blablabla. I got sick and tired of this music, started listening to real doom music and left it for what it was - well, at least for most of the bands.

But this wouldn't be mashnote if they wouldn't send me -of all people - a dark sludge album of a band I actually seem to like. Kongh plays well thought doomsludge played by people who know how metal-music should sound. Crunchy guitars, heart-tearing vocals and sludge played like it's a crawling dying man begging for help. It's cool when people beg! It's even cooler when they're begging for their life. Bands like this shouldn't make music at all when you don't have the feeling that it hurts. But this definately hurts.

So when you're ever in a desert, or in you room (which you filled with sand to make it look like a desert)... make sure it's night and play this record really really really loud! Kongh, Trust no one and especially you will be very happy with the results.

Metal Hammer
Drown yerself in a sea of doom
This Swedish trio play the sort of monumental destructive doom metal that rolls across you like a highly charged thunderstorm, gradually unleashing its fury as it passes. Founders David Johansson and Tomas Salonen come from diverse musical backgrounds which include everything from the blues to grind, and all of this finds its way into the earthly sonic sludge on this their debut full length. On songs like "Zihuatanejo" and the bleak swampland-blues of opener "Pushed Beyond" they are truly stunning. But at other times they lapse into a slightly more derivative sound that is a little indebted to the likes of Cult of Luna. And at other the cranked-down riffage is a little bit half-formed, as though the jam hadn´t quite solidified into a song. Small quibbles: this is an album packed full of promise that the commited doomster need to hear.

Prog Archives
When giving your band a name like Kongh people are going to start comparing and they'll most likely be disappointed if they don't meet the people's high expectations. I was one of those people that after reading the name I was already expecting nothing but wonderful music from these guys and they delivered. Kongh's music embodies the power, rage, boldness and immensity of King Kong (even though their name isn't spelled the same way as the gargantuan primate). And what better music to represent those qualities than something very heavy, angry and slow.

Kongh's music can be seen as a combination of Sludge and Prog Metal. The Sludge aspect of their music is the base of their sound and the Prog Metal aspect is more decorative than methodical (that sounded smart...). While this band is often lumped with Post-Metal bands I think it's misleading to do so since they're closer to their Doom Metal roots than Post-Rock. In other words, if you're expecting to hear something like Rosetta, Callisto, Mouth Of The Architect and Cult Of Luna then you're going to be disappointed. All of those warm emotions you get while listening to those bands are exchanged here by pure anger. I don't know why they're so angry, but its certainly not a bad thing.

Like all bands related to Doom Metal the music is filled with dominant crunchy riffs. The music never gets fast, it stays more on the slow and normal speeds which adds up to the heaviness (that's the whole idea behind this). The songs are standardly long (within the 10 and 15 minute mark) and they do vary from time to time. There are many places where their minimalist nature kicks in it can end up being boring to many listeners if they're not into this style of music. The vocals are a bit weird and I had some time getting used to. They're growled, but it sounds as if David Johansson (the singer and guitarist) was trying too hard. It took me a couple of listens to "get" that he's not trying too hard and that it was his style of singing. There are delicate acoustic parts to even out the aggressiveness, but they're few and far between. A great representative of their overall sound is the song "Pushed Beyond". Its very engaging throughout the 11 minutes of the song and it covers most of Kongh's qualities.

Counting Heartbeats is one of the high marks in the heavier side of metal. Its crushingly oppressive, very enjoyable and a refreshing taste on grounds already discovered. If you're a fan of Doom Metal, Sludge and the heavier Progressive Metal bands then you'll find great enjoyment in one of this year's new talent, Kongh.

RockSound
The sort of quasi-post-rocky wax job of an album that makes a certain kind of metaller cry. "Why are there STILL bands making music like this?" Well, there´s no need to cry. Kongh, a trio from Sweden, are as worthy of your wedge as any of the slow ´n´ low post-Neurosis crop. There are protracted moments of simple-but-effective drum battery and riff circulation which recalls Pelican; across the course of these five tracks, however, Kongh are longer, stronger, and a better soundtrack to sitting on some very old oaken furniture, eating venison. Nothing that´s likely to make you look at heavy music through different eyes, but delivered with a clockmaker´sprecision and muscles a-gleaming.