Streamed from a molten orange eye at the centre of a city-sized iron craft a half-mile in the sky this debut full-length album from Calgary, Alberta-based heavy metal quartet Kontact doesn’t need to split the difference between weirding heavy metal outlier-in-hindsight craft and the outright tuneful extremes available today, rather it finds personae in a dual-coded and qual-helical genetic symbiosis of forms. For a debut statement seeking to communicate its full scope in the space of eight ear-gripping songs ‘Full Contact‘ already sounds accomplished rather than plainly nostalgic, bearing the insight an artist needs to craft their own sentience from junkyard parts, treasured relics, and freshly penned charms into an accessible but unmistakable form. Though you can expect “a bit much” by their hand that’ll be exactly what the right sort of heavy metal fandom will hope for digging into this one.

Decoding for years, glyph-sourcing for days, and connected to -the- database I’ve read between the scores of zeros and ones that the idea for Kontact was had somewhere nearby 2019 when bassist/vocalist The Alien (ex-Blackrat) and Sven Nilson (Antichrist) were brainstorming ideas during their time with Swedish speed metal band Mystik before his teleportation event back to Canada during the pandemia of MMXX. The idea of unreal heavy metal from beyond was officially realized per The Alien with a different line-up circa 2021 by way of folks from Traveler, Hrom, and Chieftain who’d signed with the brilliant Temple of Mystery Records (R.I.P.) for their debut mLP ‘First Contact‘ (2022) which you might recall I’d reviewed favorably at the time of release. That first touch was comparatively more in the spirit of early-to-mid 80’s heavy metal in terms of pacing and a relatively dry, reverb splashed sound wherein the main personae of the band came from The Alien‘s vocals which resembled the more weirding side of ‘Dimension Hatröss‘-era Snake and an inspired cover of Sacred Blade‘s “Fieldz the Sunshrine” which’d helped us dial into at least a few major points of inspiration though press materials suggest everything from Manilla Road to Master’s Hammer as psyche which has seeped into their weirding realm.

In approach of ‘Full Contact‘ we find the aura of the band glowing with something like mid-to-late 80’s science fiction heavy/speed metal sounds and album art (per The Alien) which reads as if pulled from early 90’s PC game box art and for my taste this has all of the right personality for a classics-inspired yet personalized feat of heavy metal in 2024. They’ve thankfully picked up more speed as “Emperor of Dreams” warps into view but not so much that we’re anywhere but the halls of ancient heavy metal, though The Alien‘s vocals are tuned to like, late 70’s Buzzcocks-cum-Voivod levels of snot and snarl on the verses, hitting growls and codpiece clenching highs before the first chorus has arrived. My first instinct was to compare their approach to that of Vision Master‘s debut from mid-2023 and while there are some similarities in each font of high-standard weirding heavy metal songcraft each group has their own method of presentation, production and cadence. Beyond the dramatic entrance of the opener “Doppelgänger” is where the full charm of Kontact arrives with arguably the catchiest and hardest hit movements we’ve gotten from the band to date, using a swerving metalpunk-ish intro melody to develop tension up to a gallop, whip into mid-paced blasts and charge out in a power metal meets prog rock sort of dissolve. Though we could break this up into pieces, stylized touches, and whatnot but the effect is simple enough as an estranged heavy metal piece.

From that point the listener should start to recognize the kitsch of traditional heavy rock and heavy/speed metal in hand rather than an exacting theme as Kontact aims for a variety of song types and subjects which provide an ‘old school’ personae though not a flatly prescribed one. “Heavy Leather” has it all in this sense, a circa ’82 speed-rocking push with a bit of Maiden in the leads, a Sabbath-esque tritone riff to break up the action, and a kicking double-bass drum ride out of its second half. The momentum is there but we’re not getting some expansive sci-fi lore as a point of focus, rather ‘Full Contact‘ is all about the song, even as we reach for the ‘Opus Eponymous‘-meets-speed metal scratched riffs on the stomping and wailing “Astral Vampire (Return of the)”. Though they’ve hit a certain groove at that point on the full listen this’d been where I’d begin to fall off beyond enjoying the tuneful qualities of each song, the second half of the album does well to continue to crank on catchy heavy metal pieces but is perhaps more interesting for the way it changes things up song after song.

On the flipside opener “Ixaxar” and closer “Spectral Fire” are two of the best pieces on the album for my own taste where the tale-telling power-speed metal ride of the latter and the former is perfectly representative of what is both modern in conception and ancient in practice about Kontact‘s gig. Where I start to twist my face and cross my eyes comes with the over the top slow snarling “Watcher at the Edge of Time” with its distorted vocal eerie and ballad pace, not a bad song but not a painless induction either. The full listen of ‘Full Contact‘ left me entirely satisfied by the amount of ground covered, the variety of hooks dotting its span, and the ‘ready made professional feeling of the record which shows no signs of growing pains in the step from EP to debut LP. In terms of a unique induction versus a lasting experience I’d found this debut made a few choices I didn’t necessarily enjoy (give me a few more mean-assed riffs, eh) but still impressed with its contents and container alike, promising a distinct and song-oriented heavy metal experience here and beyond. Strange enough to entertain but tuneful enough to stick, this debut is entirely deserving of a high recommendation.

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