Konkhra - Reality Check

Konkhra have been described as “Denmark’s premier death/thrash act”. Having been available overseas for a number of years, their most recent album Reality Check is finally getting a local release. Musically I’d have to say that this disc leans strongly towards the thrash rather than the death style of metal, particularly on the title track, but arguing with bios is really just nitpicking. The fact is Reality Check is a tight, heavy and largely impressive piece of work.

Double kicks and solos abound for the old school metal purists, but the riffs are chunky enough and the vocals dark enough to give Konkhra a modern edge, and to avoid a lot of the elitism and wankery that often goes with this territory. The production is much better than a lot of similar albums too, with each instrument getting its clear space in a mammoth sounding mix. But be assured, this is not nu-metal by any stretch of the imagination, relying on heavy riffs and skill rather than gimmicks and angst. The Lions are Hungry thumps along with chugging riffs, using Roman times (A.D. 0055) as a metaphor for the war hungry state of the world now.

War and time are the continuous themes of the album, with each song having a year assigned to it in the lyrics booklet, and a “fuck you” dedicated on the last page to “all the warmongers who tries (sic) so hard to make this juicy green planet an unsafe place to be.” Other traditional metal themes such as religion and mythology also pop up on tracks like The Eye of Horus and Fear of God. Hellhound on My Tail begins with a very Slayer-esque breakdown and continues along a similar path, although perhaps taking the sinister route compared to the aforementioned’s more brutal sound. Elsewhere The Coming of®age and closing track The Blackest of Dawns provide brief instrumental breaks to help break up the flow.

My only criticism is that many of the songs don’t seem like they’ve reached their full potential. Konkhra can write a good riff, but all too often songs like Reality Check and Day of the Dog start out promising, and are then let down by uninspired parts in the middle. And despite only going for 45 minutes, into which they manage to pack 12 songs, the end of the album starts to drag and feel a little repetitive.

Still, Reality Check has been given a local release in preparation for an Australian tour in November, and on the strength of this album, it should be an exciting show to see.

(Originally published on FasterLouder)