Album review: Bong RA - Monolith

So a couple of weeks ago I spoke about the new electronic explortions podcast by Bong Ra, which is linked here.

Over the weekend my copy of Bong Ra's new album turned up, it had taken a little while longer than I hoped as it had to come from Germany.

Bong Ra's someone who I've seen DJ a lot, but never really gone digging around into tracks he's actually made until the last 4 or 5 months. In all honesty, he's right up my street, a dark ethos, with some real industrial/metal infused sounds.

The new album is no exception, and probably goes more crossover than other stuff I've heard released under the Bong Ra name (there's some crossover side projects with other musicians he's done, i.e. wormskull).

To be completely clear about this, I fucking love this album. Its only 8 tracks and is split into 2, alpha and omega.

Alpha is 4 tracks that contain lyrics from the rapper/producer Sole (Co-founder of the record label Anticon). Sole's lyrics really suit bong ra's tunes, down beat but well written and planned out, I think over all I prefer this part of the album more (Alpha), the stand out track for me has to be Pandora's Box which is a brilliant tune.

Moving on to the second part of the album (Omega), these are more straightforward techy death jungle/tekno/dubstep speed tunes, and fuck me do the pack a punch....... Personally I feel the alpha tunes more, but I also love the omega tunes, I'd just rather listen to them mixed together. Standout tune in omega for me has to be 'Darkness | Artificial flesh'.

In all honesty, if you like this kind of music, buy this album, if your unsure, listen to the podcast, as pretty much all of the tunes are on there, then consider buying it if you like it. It comes highly recomended from th wonky donkey.

Bong-Ra's website can be found here, and the album can be bought  here.