Lunatic

Bought this album a few weeks ago, knowing nothing about the band, just based on the song “Come With Me Now” plus a few really excellent Youtube music videos from the Lunatic album, plus several favorable reviews here at Amazon. I have not been disappointed.Kongos is a band formed by the 4 Kongos brothers, Johnny, Jesse, Dylan and Danny. Their father John was a successful South African / European singer / songwriter in the 70s and 80s, so musical talent apparently runs in the family. Their debut album Lunatic was released as early as 2012 in various countries, and was officially re-released in January 2014 when the band signed with Epic Records.All the brothers appear to be talented musicians. A special callout to Jesse on drums – I love the marching band snare drum sound on “I’m Only Joking,” “Take Me Back,” and “It’s A Good Life,” for example, plus solid backup on the rest of the songs. John is the band’s keyboardist, including the accordion. An accordion is a highly unusual rock instrument, but John uses it to excellent effect, making especially impressive contributions to “Come With Me Now” and “Take Me Back.”John and Jesse appear to be the songwriters in the family. Jesse is credited with 5 songs, John with 4, Dylan with 2, and Danny with one, although it is very clear from the productions that a lot of collaboration goes on among the brothers. Jesse contributed several excellent songs in “I’m Only Joking,” “Hey I Don’t Know” and “It’s A Good Life.” But the top songwriting credit has to go to John for “Come With Me Now” alone. “Take Me Back” is infectious and meticulously well-crafted, and is quickly becoming my favorite song from this album. Not to mention John’s strong ballad “This Time I Won’t Forget,” which is also getting lots of play time on my morning commute.Dylan wrote only 2 songs on the album, but his ballad “Travelin On” is heartfelt and effective, and is also becoming one of my favorites. I especially love the official video – it appears this is mostly a solo, with only modest instrumental backup. Kudos to Dylan for an excellent job.I am very high on this band, love many of the songs, and am looking forward to many more quality tracks from the brothers. I hope the Grammy voters take note, although the early release may disqualify them from recognition in 2014.

What a potent mix from the get-go. The first two tracks are radio hits and justifybly so. I have a room in my house set up strictly for music listening. I have all Klipsch speakers and turned this up, not only did I like it, I'm sure my neighbors around me did also. I also took it one step further, I buy Mobile Fidelity gold recording CD's and copied it for MY OWN USE. Talk about bringing out the dynamite base then. With posting both tracks at the front of the CD, the rest is good, but it leaves you searching for another track towards the end to complete it. I knew nothing about the Kongos before I heard them on rock radio but now keep them close to my other favorite rock bands, like AC/DC and others, not those whimpy bands that make commercially pop music and try to pawn it off as rock. I am giving this as a stocking stuffer in a few weeks, hope I get at least one thing back that I would think equals this CD. As usual, only AMAZON had the adult version, the only one I could find at other shopping places had been cleaned up, meaning all the "bad language" had been taken out. Talk about creative extraction. Anyway, if you liked the two cuts that played on radio, this is well worth buying to hear the others. Keep up the great work Kongos!

This is a great album! great musicians playing great songs with haunting and mesmerizing melodies utilizing irregular voicings,patterns, and instruments (incredible melding of accordion and guitars, drums, and vocals/melodies/lyrics and of course kongas!) the lyrics are sometimes clever and catch you off guard while other lyrics paint a beautiful sonic picture that you can see in your head as you're listening (listen to "escape" for this effect). The way the album is arranged feels complete from start to finish and you don't have to skip a single track as each song has it's own enchanting allure that pulls you into this bands AMAZING MUSIC. It's been quite awhile since there's been something I would consider great music but this album definitely fits into my opinion of great music. If you like this album I would also recommend Sam Roberts Band "Lo-Fantasy" which is also a good album with a slightly more upbeat and pop style of rock but it is nicely done and executed well throughout as an album, it's not as deep and intricate as "Lunatic" in it's musicianship/song structure IMO but it's still worth checking out....def. better than a lot of the crap that's been coming out over the past few years, Hopefully we'll be hearing more amazing music/albums from actual bands who have genuine talent and make interesting and memorable music...to that end Kongos: "Lunatic" is a great example of how new music can be just as engaging and listenable as those classic bands of the past with a refreshing sound and new blending of sounds and songwriting. 10 stars!