I debated with myself long and hard about whether or not I wanted to say anything about this album, and in the end, the side of me that favored writing a post won out, mostly because I happen to like this release a lot sonically, but also, against my better judgment, I find it amusing. But before I go any further, I just want to say for the record that I hate this kind of stuff and I am generally opposed to it. What kind of stuff you may ask? Stuff like people uploading metal and punk projects to the internet while claiming to be from a country where there is a perception that these types of music are either uncommon, outright prohibited, or both. Over the past decade, the worst offenders in this regard (in my estimation at least) have been black metal and crust punk music from people claiming to be from Muslim majority countries. They are usually embarrassingly exposed from the outset by writing the titles to their songs in Arabic running left to right, but even worse than being liars, these projects are usually pretty suck-ass, soulless, and derivative. Everyone's favorite example of this sort of scam seems to be Ghost Bath, i.e., the North Dakota atmoblack band who initially made their bag claiming to be from China (a country that has no shortage of metal bands in it), but I could actually care less about another personalityless "blackgaze" band. For context, Kuryong (which Google keeps translating for me as Kowloon- a place in China that no longer exists), claims on their Bandcamp, and through a number of uploads to Youtube via channels that post a lot of underground metal, that they are part of a North Korean propaganda project, actually based in the DPRK and sponsored by the government there. Sure... the government of the DPRK is looking to increase warm feelings and tolerance for itself in the West and the world more broadly by releasing black metal music... the most openly hostile and nihilistic form of heavy music there is... great f*cking strategy. What's next? Are they going to hire actors to re-enact a GG Allin set at the next UN General Assembly meeting? I can't claim to be an expert on all things (or any things) North Korean, but I'm willing to bet that a band like this, with this image and sound, is not how THAT (or any) government wants to present itself to the world. So it's nearly 100% guaranteed the backstory of this demo is bull-pucky from a sniff test angle, but then there is the actual proof, manifest, that this is not a North Korean project, this being the fact that IT HAS A BANDCAMP AND YOUTUBE PRESENCE! It's literally against Bandcamp's Terms of Service to use their platform if you are a citizen of, or located in, North Korea, and any money obtained from such an internet presence via sales would violate so, so, so many US sanctions and laws. In addition, YouTube is extremely cautious about letting stuff from sanctioned countries onto their platform because they don't want to get fined or prosecuted by the US government- they will take down a channel run by a woman in North Korea who does nothing but fish and visit waterfalls in order to avoid these complications- there is no reason to believe they wouldn't immediately kill something like this demo as well if they thought there was any chance of it having its origin in the DPRK. So what IS the likely story behind Kuryong's Summoning of Paektu? Well as some people on Reddit and YouTube have already pointed out, the band does appear to actually be singing (shrieking) in Korean, so that probably rules out some Idaho farm boy having a goof. It also means that this is likely a hoax (or likely more accurately a facade) of someone(s) from either South Korea or somewhere else in Asia (potentially making this an even more intriguing and frankly dangerous endeavor than it appears on its surface- because being pro-DPRK, even as a joke, is very, very, incredibly illegal in South Korea). But what is the REALLY REAL story behind Kuryong's Summoning of Paektu? It freakin rips! It doesn't matter where it's from, this is a despairingly ugly, bleak and harrowingly caustic cask of second-wave styled black metal that sounds like it was recorded in the depths of a sunken tomb only to rise like a cloud of diseased bats to blot out the sun and suck the marrow from your bones. A horrid whirlwind of blightingly odious sound that licks and gnaws the ears like a gale formed of biting insects and razor wire. A wretched and consciously vicious emergence of insatiable malignance and pestilent sound that harkens to darker prospects just beyond the field of our apprehension and the light of our intellect and reason. I really don't care who did this, or where they are actually from, but I want to hear more, either under Kuryong's present guise, or whatever other mask they care to don in order to face the world.
