This is a weird one. Kongos' 'Lunatic' is just getting a shove in the UK, having been released in the sibling quartet's native South Africa at the tail end of 2012 before blowing up in the US over the course of the summer. And, blowing up really isn’t an overstatement.
The push that’s accompanied its arrival over here is, not unusually, a maelstrom of sales figures, YouTube stats, lofty comparisons and chart records. It’s a bit “they’ve thrown a kettle over a pub”, but that doesn’t change the fact that Kongos are a big deal in the making.
Reflecting the fact that the record features writing credits for each of the brothers - Jesse, Dylan, Johnny and Daniel - in turn, ‘Lunatic’ is an eclectic affair. It has fingers in a bunch of pies, from Mumford and Sons shoutalongs to psych-rock and classic radio pop, all tethered by an absolute commitment to thunderous percussion and accordion breaks.
While subtlety isn’t much of a concern, delivering their songs with requisite passion certainly is. Almost every hook, even on the nominally quiet Kids These Days and Escape, is bellowed with maximum vigour, backed by foot-stamps, claps and a bone-deep desire to overwhelm.
More often than not, though, that energy doesn’t translate into anything particularly memorable. When they drop the tempo and buff a few rough edges to a shine the results - notably Sex On The Radio - are easy to dismiss, while Come With Me Now and Hey I Don’t Know show that going to the opposite extreme and indulging their chest-beating desires is equally ineffective.
Kongos have laid it all out there on ‘Lunatic’, which is always something to admire, but there’s something curiously empty about the end result.
Kongos Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu October 23 2014 - LONDON Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen.
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