Double Play: The Brought Low & Kongh

THE BROUGHT LOW

THIRD RECORD

SMALL STONE RECORDS

There’s a real shortage these days of something I like to call High Rocktane music (yes, I do think I’m clever by the way). This is music that was born of the seventies but filtered through modern rock concepts. It isn’t stonerrock as that was born more from Sabbath and Kyuss, this is born more from Sir Lord Baltimore, Grand Funk Railroad and then bands like Boss Hog and The Stooges. One band that seems to be bringing High Rocktane back is The Brought Low and their tremendous new album titled, well, Third Record.

Third Record is a full blast rock record filled with a deep affinity for soul. The up-tempo songs rock in a great way but it’s really the mid-tempo slower jams that show you where The Brought Low is most powerful. Grimy and gritty these songs feel like the deep south at dusk when the humidity is overpowering and a rain storm is right on the tip of your tongue. A song like “My Favorite Waste Of Time” has pure sex rhythms being fleshed out by a guitar sound that is soaked with beer and dirt.  

Don’t get me wrong, the rock jams here kick ass. The opening song  “Old Century” is a full on arena rock boogie tune, complete with a foot stomping riff that would make Grand Funk proud. I was especially driven to search out a fistfight at the end of “Everybody Loves A Whore”, a song written to drink, fight and fuck to.  The Brought Low makes rock a good time again, lets it be groovy and silly and totally real. So much of what goes on today tries to garner respectability by being “dark” or “brooding” where as The Brought Low achieve that respectability by bringing the party.

The unexpected thing with The Brought Low is the vocals handled by guitarist Ben Smith. There are all kinds of bands out there writing High Rocktane style music but then ruin it by laying down vocals that either suck or just don’t belong. Smith who is largely an East Coast guy sings with a southern drawl, not a forced one but a sort of natural everyman style that takes the already killer music and raises it up a level. These songs sound like old tales told by a man who was there and that’s a feel sorely lacking in other bands has right now.

Oddly enough the greatest strength of The Brought Low’s “Third Record” also becomes its Achilles Heel. While the slow jams are just amazing I felt by the end of the record there might have been room for one more up-tempo tune. The last song “Slow Your Roll” is an awesome instrumental but it doesn’t feel like an ending, it feels like the song just before the end. It’s obvious The Brought Low know what they want and who am I to question it, I just think Third Record would’ve been perfect if summed up with a smash face last song..

The Brought Low, Throttlerod, Fireball Ministry, all these bands are doing their best to bring back High Rocktane music for a world that needs a party. The best thing about The Brought Low is that they don’t forget there are chicks at the party and chicks need the slow simmering jams to get in the mood. Third Record is a monster album that had better get a lot of attention this year, if not then why are we even doing this anymore?

Crave Online Rating 8 Out Of 10

KONGH

SHADOWS OF THE SHAPELESS

SEVENTH RULE RECORDS

Staking out a much darker territory is Kongh a Swedish heavy doom/rock outfit and their new studio offering Shadows Of The Shapeless. As you can probably infer from the title this is a dark, plodding album filled with huge guitar sounds that sweep into the upper echelon of the epic rock song. Kongh takes their cues from Neurosis, Eyehategod and even a touch of Black Sabbath. As cool as that sounds and as much going on as Kongh has, the band can’t seem to put it all together.

This kind of dark doom drenched rock is a hard hustle to put together mainly because if it’s not executed correctly the music comes out boring. It’s the difference between the dark kid in class who reads Lovecraft and the one who reads Guns & Ammo. Both are outside the norm but one had zero direction and in turn zero interest. Kongh has everything going for them but at no point during the new album does it work. Riffs that start interesting become boring, parts land that seem to have been added just to add them, there is no cohesive identity to it.

I’m all for long experimental songs that annoy others but when you open the album with an eleven minute epic and then flow into a fifteen minute one they’d better be kicking the hell out of me the entire time. Instead these tunes just meander to their unsatisfying end, which sets you up to be bored for the remainder of the record. It bummed me out to because I wanted to like this album; I started out really enjoying it but lost that excitement about halfway through the second tune.

Kongh are a part of a loud and proud legacy of music that tries to tap the inner demons of the human soul and I commend them for that. The problem with Shadows Of The Shapeless is that it is literally shapeless. Nothing seems to be thought out and yet it all seems too planned to be improvisation. What’s left is an experimental record that doesn’t experiment and a dark album that doesn’t connect on an emotional level at all. Failing on both of those plains drops Kongh from epic to du;;. 

I don’t think Kongh should hang it up by any means, there’s definitely some solid work within the album. What they need is to make a decision, do they want to be experimental or do they want to be a dark force that touches people. Very few bands can do both and since Kongh can’t they might want to take a different road. Shadows Of The Shapeless just isn’t good enough to set Kongh apart from the bunches of other bands trying to do the same thing. With this kind of music you either land on the side of boring or brilliance, sadly Kongh has landed on the side with less letters.

Crave Online Rating 4 Out Of 10