FKN KVLT REKORDS – 18th September 2026
The band describe their latest album, Super Rebound, as ‘is an action packed record with an unsound hero at the wheel. Wildly navigating through a landscape filled with leaden riffs, open harmonies, foghorns, and a dose of unadulterated joy and radiant bliss. Deranged, but sweet. Fuming with feels.’
This is only their third full-length album in their fifteen-year career, although they’ve maintained a steady flow of EPs, some of which have been on the longer side (their last release, HONESTY INTEGRITY FRIENDSHIP PASSION contained only four tracks, but due to the last one having a run time of twelve and a half minutes long, it spanned a full thirty minutes) – and they reckon this could be their definitive document, their magnum opus, the apogee of their riff-centric intent rendered concrete.
It’s certainly a big old guitar-driven racket, and it’s not without detail or humour, either. The first bars of the first song, ‘The Gums’, are kinda nicey-nicey, picked, melodic, a bit indie, a bit emo even, then all hell breaks loose with a thunderous slab of a riff and rabid vocals and I’ve no idea what the fuck they’re yelling about, but waaaauughh! It’s all good. Then there’s a rather Shellac-like mid-section where they persecute a single note for what feels like an eternity before going black metal in a blanket of fretwork and explosive percussion. It’s a lot to cram in to five minutes, but in keeping with the band’s name and general ethos, it’s chaotic and wildly unpredictable.
The punningly-titled ‘Prism Break’ melds driving repetition and the dingy riffery of early Melvins with something more fiery as they fire up all cylinders for a brutal sonic assault.
The three pieces with (quite self-explanatory) parenthetical titles are instrumental interludes where they lay down the guitars and explore very different territories. Consequently, after the meandering instrumental of [Horns Wailing], the sledgehammer sound of ‘Mountainesque 4’ his even harder by virtue of contrast. It’s six and a half minutes of unbridled raging racket, which hammers away relentlessly. The guitars are as dirty as they come and blur into the bass in a mess of overloading distortion, the barking vocals low in the mix… the midsection is, once again, a complete shift, venturing into almost neoprog territories, with swirling synths and pomp-filled bass runs. It borders on muso, but feels somewhat tongue-in-cheek – not quite parody prog, but the lilting, picked notes which play to the fade certainly mark a contrast. And then there’s the recent single, ‘Unsound Hero’, which tests the patience with the most protracted, strung-out intro, consisting initially of nothing but a crashing snare for the longest fifteen seconds imaginable, and then a clean guitar pulse enters the mix and… are they in time with one another? Something doesn’t seem quite right… Yes, of course it’s intentional. I’m momentarily reminded of The Melvins’ track ‘Mine is No Disgrace’ from The Crybaby, with JG Thirlwell – a sprawling eight-and-a-half minute behemoth that pushed the quite-loud dynamic thing to its absolute limit – because here, 30,000 Monkies drag that intro out, and out, teasing at when the levee will break and the riff will hit, exploring a melodic, proggy, Oceansize-like melodic drift… at two minutes and seven, there’s a pause. Silence. Nothing. Suspense. Two seconds is a long time when you’re teetering on the brink, when you’re hanging, waiting… But at two minutes and nine, BLAM! And that riff is low, grinding, and raw. The slow grinding notes ring long and resonate as they trudge into the domain of rib-crushing weight. Stripping it all away leaves the sound of a soul being torn apart and offers no solace – quite the opposite, in fact – before the devastating onslaught of the final minute.
AA
You might think these guys are fucking with you, and in a way, they probably are. The title track is nothing short of pure riffmania, nearly seven minutes of punishing, pulverising power that’s absolutely relentless, crushing, and again holding a single chord for what feels like an eternity in the final minute.
This is noise rock with the emphasis on the noise, the filthy overdrive and feedback cranked to the max, and any moments of respite are simply lulls and lures designed to amplify the impact of the most brutal, rib-cracking riffs when they land. The formula isn’t genius, or even new, but 30,000 Monkies know precisely how to utilise it for optimal impact. And ‘Swerver’ hits hard, alright.
The ringing layers of ambience which shape [Bells Ringing, Tale Melting] are a world apart from the rest of the album, and while the warping sounds which drag and drift aren’t entirely soothing, they’re on another plane from the fiery wall of guitars which dominate Super Rebound… until the final three minutes, when they pull out the most devastatingly crushing doom of the entire album. It feels like a trick, an ambush, and one we should have seen coming, because 30,000 Monkies just can’t help themselves. There has to be a bone-splintering, skull smashing riff at some point in every song. It’s just a question of when it lands.
Super Rebound is a work of genius, with 30,000 Monkies really delving into suspense and detail – but more than anything, it’s a riff-laden rager of an album.
AA
Aural Aggravation 