Blimey has it really been nine years since last album ‘Stern’? How time flies. Still one thing is assured, the Dutch instrumental groove metal act is one that once heard is never particularly forgotten. It’s a sound that I have followed since way back in 1992 when their second album ‘Phlegm’ was coughed into my lap at the local second hand record store. ‘Traders Of Truth’ seems to be their ninth studio album and pressing play, it doesn’t matter how many years have passed since you last heard them, their unique and quirky sound is instantly identifiable and like greeting a long lost friend. For those who don’t know, Kong were renowned for live shows with each member in their own corner of the stage playing from a raised pillar. I’m guessing they still do this today, truth told I only remember them visiting the UK once and playing the long demolished LA2 as part of some Metal Hammer presents night. One of the other three bands was I believe Iron Monkey but the rest fades into the long lost past.
Bassist Mark Drillich is the one surviving member of the original line-up and here he takes us through 11 tracks, most with odd names which were conceived in various places including a former cloister over the past 4 years. Odd shapes come out the speakers, there’s a slight industrial tinge via clanking machinery on opener ‘Radiance’ and boy is that bass sound thick. Two guitarists present an infectious melody, the progressive tentacles of which will come back to your head long after you have heard it. There’s a certain urgency in the build-up which gets manic at times and motion is constant and impossible not to get twitches from body parts, forced into their own movement by its jaunty rhythm. There are a couple of numbers with sampled vocal sounds in, such as ‘Hit That Red’ but these are utilised as much as an instrument as anything else and just give things a slight notch as you coast along on the up and down guitar motion coming along in waves. Mania is slightly tempered with the futuristic sounding ‘Fringing’ with its bleeps and blips and it purveys the sound of an elegant space cruiser meandering through space.
Each and every track has own identity and is kept to an accessible average 4-5 minute running time. The players make it all sound so natural as they jam things out with a fluid precision not allowing things to get stale or stand still in the slightest. It’s all constructed like an equation but is unlike complicated maths easy to follow even when a track such as Rök shape shifts into something slightly different when instruments drop in and out. I guess there’s some meaning behind titles and cover image. Put ‘Mirrorizon’ together with the visual representation and see where the track takes you. Tinkling synth notes suggest you could be in some weird hall of mirrors perhaps and ‘Glasslands’ rumbles away taking us off on a literal safari of sounds from hand tapped percussion and dub laden tremble at heart with calm progressive guitar melody filling in the spaces. ‘Ripper’ moves onto a post-punk twang with added noise rock pretensions and picks up the buoyancy. Genres be damned, there’s bits of everything going on here.
Kong are one of those rare bands that prove instrumental music does not have to be missing a key ingredient. You are never going to be thinking songs could be better with vocals, a problem I really have with a lot of instrumental post-rock these days. These are highly inventive constructs of sounds and you never get complacent, always wondering what on earth could come next. If you have never heard them before, have a listen and see what I mean. If you have, well you already have partly unlocked this secret and will be well aware that ‘Traders Of Truth’ is going to equally captivate and keep you on toes from beginning to end.
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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