Band:	Kong
Album:	Stern
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	September 19, 2014
A review by:	Ivor

01. Fool's Engine
02. Rage8FA
03. Slant
04. Wide Awake
05. Perseverance
06. Surfing Narrative Waves
07. Stars & Tribes
08. Contenu Inconnu
09. Determine
10. Inflate Expand Release
11. Different Odds
12. NOZL
13. Feast Or Burden

Kong are extremely good at delivering music that is restless and unsettling. If you're an impressionable sort, a driver that gets nervous and twitchy at the wheel of a car in a rush hour, Kong is not a good choice of background music. It will surely make you even more anxious and jumpy. It's the sort of music that just doesn't let itself be enjoyed sitting tight.

An introduction like that will likely make you wonder what kind of music we're dealing with here and, most probably, the first thought that crossed the finish line of your consciousness doesn't revolve around prog metal. Yet, this is what Kong is, although, as you might guess, things aren't quite as simple as that, or it wouldn't live up to the introduction. In Kong we have a four-piece instrumental prog metal band, with a heavy dose of a kind of industrialized synths.

There are two primary aspects to Kong's music that make it what it is. The first is the structure of the music. A lot of it revolves around the circular and repetitive patterns for a build-up. You can hear it in the driving riffs, the bass-lines, and the drum beats. It's not to say there's no progression to the songs; there's enough of that to make the repetition less obvious. It is there, though, as the main tool for the theme development.

The second aspect are the aforementioned industrialized synths, which go hand in hand with the rhythms. The music is inherently dark, and Kong go a long way to put synths, as well as different sounds and samples to good use to create an atmosphere of considerable unrest. In point of fact, this is what makes Kong a somewhat difficult band to enjoy if you're expecting a laid back rest to the tunes of the album.

Although Kong have been around for a long while, I first heard them on their previous album Merchants of Air. Stern appeared less exciting upon the first listen but it's grown on me since then, and it is at least on par with the predecessor. For a good dose of restless music, Kong should be your choice.