originally written by Erik Highter
BF-OR. Big Fuck-Off Riffs. It’s all Major Kong is about, and their second full-length album, Doom Machine, is a mission statement. As soon as the sample ends at the beginning of the opening title track, this Polish band turns on the BF-OR machine and goes for it. There are no vocals, no breakdowns, no twiddly, fiddly atmospheric bits. Major Kong dispense with frippery and finery, niceties and nuance; if you don’t like the first 60 seconds, you won’t like the album. This is all about huge, stupidly-awesome riffs that rattle around your empty skull and make you grin from ear to ear.
However, such single-mindedness can lead to repetition. For the most part Major Kong avoids that pitfall with shifts in tone, generous wah-wah, and a thumpingly solid drum sound that cuts through the riffs. Those drums serve to keep things varied when the riff miners have to reset the bit, but there are a few sections of the nearly ten-minute track “Planets & Suns Consumed” where that reset takes far too long. Thankfully, the other lengthy tune, album closer “Skull of the Titan”, avoids that pitfall with aplomb. It doesn’t fly by like the title track or “Tractor Beam”, but like them, not a single riff, fill or grumbling bassline overstays its welcome.
Ask around, and everyone will tell you BF-OR is my drug of choice. A good vocalist can add a great deal to a song, and I’m all for subtlety and artfulness when it’s done well. Despite that, if you don’t have the riffs than I don’t see the point. Doom Machine is on point, and I’m well and hooked on the riffs they’re slinging. Major Kong has got me whooping and hollering like their namesake riding that nuke down to oblivion.
