Kev Rowland
The first incarnation of Kongh originated in Vetlanda, Sweden in 2004 when David Johansson (guitar and vocals) and Tomas Salonen (drums) got in touch and decided to start a band together. The two were from different musical backgrounds involving grindcore, punk and blues, but had a common desire to play in a new band without any musical boundaries. It needed to be monstrously heavy, and with a total lack of restrictions in terms of structure and length of songs. That was the foundation of the band, and as a result, the two-piece started to meet in the rehearsal space every weekend, drinking large amounts of beer and exploring the depths of heaviness. As time went on, real songs started to come to life, and by summer 2005, the beast had gotten the name Kongh.
In early 2006, they had written four songs they were really satisfied with, so they decided to go to the local Teknikkompaniet studio with engineer Peter Lundin, and the result was the 45 minute long ‘Demo 2006’. Shortly after, the band line-up was completed when bass player Oskar Rydén joined the band. The demo was released in May, put online and submitted to some magazines, and by the end of the summer, the band had gathered a decent fanbase and had signed their first album deal with Stockholm based label Trust No One Recordings (Switchblade, Breach, Isis). The rest of the year was spent working on material for the album in 2007 they went back into the studio to record ‘Counting Heartbeats’, which was widely acclaimed and was even nominated for a P3 Guld award in the ‘Best rock/metal album’ category.
So why all the ancient history? Well, Agonia have made this available as a deluxe double CD which includes not only the debut album, but the ‘Demo 2006’ recordings plus the 25 minute long “Drifting On Waves” which was released on a split album with Ocean Chief. Yes, doom/sludge/ stoner/post-rock/black metal fans, we have here a ten song set that is more than 130 minutes long. As this is such an old album I knew that there would be plenty of reviews on the web, so I went trawling through quite a few of them, and was somewhat surprised to see that this album is seen as something of a revelation, and is undoubtedly incredibly important within the genre. But, I like to be different, and I just can’t agree with the comments.
I listen to everything metallic, but there is something about this that just doesn’t connect with me. True, there are moments within it where the band really hit a strong melody, but there are plenty of more where I just find it boring. That they have brought together many styles of metal is never in doubt, nor is the fact that it is incredibly heavy with riffs of lead, but it just isn’t something that I enjoyed playing and only worked my way through all the material a few times because I had to. I am sure that fans of the band will be very pleased indeed to be able to get this (if you buy this from the record label site and are one of the first you will also get an exclusive t-shirt), but I’m not one of them. www.agoniarecords.com