STERN

Stern is an excellent release from Kong. It's more experimental in tone than most of their work, and has a wider range of mood, from hard-driving "King Crimson" Red-era metal, to the techno influence of their middle period. Some of the softer pieces sound like they'd be at home on an Ozric Tentacles album (though perhaps a bit harder edged).

One of the things that I particularly like about the many moods of this album is the use of organic sounds throughout as background elements: some spoken word (some in English), laughter, bird song, etc. The album is, as always, instrumental only (apart from the background words used as sonic or rhythmic elements).

There's quite a bit of King Crimson influence at play in this album, including some guitar and bass elements that remind me of later Crimson (Beat and beyond). I'll have to do some comparative listening to see how Stern compares to some of the more recent Kong albums, but at first listen-through I'd put this as one of their best (though not at the peak of Phlegm).

KONG, hailing from Holland, is a seasoned unit in music circles, formed back in 1988, and with eight full-length studio productions to their name at the time of writing. Following a spell of inactivity they returned as an active band unit with a revamped line-up in 2008, and have released three of their albums after this point. "Stern" is the most recent of those, and was released through the band's own label Kongenial Records in 2014.

The many and often rather different aspects that, in sum, constitute the sound of this band make for a generally engaging and interesting ride, as long as you do have an affection for everything that is within the fairly broad scope of this album. If an instrumental production by a band exploring what may be described as industrial space metal sounds like a good thing to you, or if an album caught somewhere at the halfway stage between Nine Inch Nails and Ozric Tentacles sounds appealing to you, "Stern" is an album you may want to add to your list of music that merits a check.

This is one of the albums of the type "band that I like plays the stuff they do well", and this surely is a positive thing. So we have another dose of heavy guitar riff driven instrumental rock with mighty drums and some electronics and samples mixed in to make things more interesting. One can't accuse the band of pushing the borders though; as a long standing follower of the band there is hardly any surprise for me in this. The album is somewhat dynamic with some calmer parts that in other reviews were fittingly associated with the Ozric Tentacles, however this element could already be found on the predecessor Merchants of Air. Some of these parts are atmospheric and work well, some others are a bit monotonous, just waiting for the next eruption. "Surfing Narrative Waves" harks back to Kong's outlier more electronic album Freak Control. So the elements that the band has used before are mixed to good effect once more and if you don't know Kong you may actually be quite impressed by this - but then you may want to start your exploration of the band elsewhere.

As I am a fan of the band, I play this a lot and I enjoy it as all their offerings before (Kong really hasn't produced a single weak album yet and they have done quite a few). Once more this is very powerful music and still Kong have their own very characteristic style so that whenever they have a new album I need it for lack of other bands that could substitute them. But still there is lots of heavy riffing on this album, not all of it really sparkling, this lead element feels a bit overused to me after all the years.

OK, 3.3 stars. Can't give 4 all the time, sorry. But still it's a good album, really!

PS: I just realise that Feast or Burden, the last song, cites Steve Hillage's Glorious Om Riff, good reference, guys! Who says there are no surprises?