EP Review: Kohana – Blaze (Self Released)

Kohana is a stoner grunge band from Thessaloniki. The band combines 90s grunge fast-paced drums and gritty vocals with desert rock heavy bass lines and guitar riffs. Spanning from smooth instrumental sections to head-banging mayhem, Kohana’s sound is raw and intense.

Kohana released a 3-track EP entitled ‘Blaze’ on February 11th 2020.

Dusty and dirty, the stoner vibes of I Lost Myself has a nice and catchy rhythm to get Blaze underway. Echoing guitar riffs, a simple yet pleasant drum beat and sultry and soulful vocals work to get the foot tapping along and then it ‘heavies’ up. Thicker and meatier, the beat remains the same but there’s a fair bit more growl to everything.

A banging start, Purple Rain then takes that a step further with something quite special.

Over 12 minutes long, like a slumbering beast that is emerging from hibernation, Kohana stretch themselves and bask in the desert sunshine. Brimming with renewed life and energy, there is some real fire here and it makes such a lengthy effort all the more bearable. That it gets steadily faster and faster is the real draw and by the end, it’s evolved into a wild guitar ripping effort.

After that, it would be difficult to switch the mind over to the rawer and punkier Grasshopper if it wasn’t such a groovy piece of rock music.

Certainly showing off just what they are capable of, Blaze is a stonking showcase of modern stoner rock music.

Kohana – Blaze Full Track Listing:

1. I Lost Myself
2. Purple Rain
3. Grasshopper

Links

Bandcamp | Facebook