About a decade ago, the American post-black metal band Ghost Bath claimed to be from China. What exactly the intention behind that was remains a mystery to most people. In the end, it brought the band more negative than positive publicity.
Now we have 구룡 (Kuryong, which means “Nine Dragons”) — a band claiming to come from the closed-off nation of North Korea. Yes, that North Korea, where Kim Jong-un has ruled with an iron fist since 2011 after his father’s death. The same North Korea about which we know very little, as it’s completely sealed off from the outside world; where nothing is allowed and everything is required. The same North Korea where you can choose from only five state-approved hairstyles — and these two guys want us to believe they can walk around with their long hair?
According to their Bandcamp page – “During the permitted period, we recorded the sounds using limited instruments and equipment under conditions of electrical shortage.
All operations were carried out in accordance with the established regulations, and every recording was completed under those same conditions.”
Well, a good story always does well on TikTok, so they’re currently getting plenty of attention on social media. Of course, there are people who believe this fairy tale. It’s possible that these are two North Korean refugees now living in South Korea, especially since I’ve read in several places that their use of Korean sounds more South than North Korean. Personally, I wouldn’t know — my Korean has been a bit rusty since kindergarten.
As for the music: there’s basically no production. It sounds like it was recorded in the early ’90s in a tiny 3-by-4-meter room — although I think that was done deliberately. Beneath the noise, you can clearly hear that some work has gone into the recordings. The three tracks, with a total running time of nine minutes, present us with a not-so-bad Korean take on Norwegian black metal — especially in the second track, you can clearly hear influences from Emperor.
All in all, it’s an amusing little project that might be real, but could just as easily have been made by AI. We simply don’t know.
70/100
구룡:
Bandcamp