Given metal's global following and appeal, the inevitability of both North American and European bands attempting to make the genre 'fun' is compounded by the genre's fragmentation into so many shards of sub-genre glass. Enter Austria's KONTRUST, the group around since 2001 but finally making its breakthrough impact with Second Hand Wonderland, an ADHD-addled record that reminds of STOLEN BABIES, BLESSED BY A BROKEN HEART and POWERMAN 5000, even if the totality of the album's output sounds like none of those component parts, save for the electro-isms and nu groove of Powerman. At its core, Second Hand Wonderland is a frat house on a Saturday night in some far off, distant land, a place that has no conception of what’s cringe-inducing and only wants to party. Hard. Which isn't being entirely fair to Second Hand Wonderland, because this album is immaculately conceived in its slick, slick nature, and the execution of the zig-zagged ideas is actually done particularly well, given the over the top mandate that was no doubt entrusted to the production team and studio engineers. But when listened to as an expression, Kontrust is what I imagine the worst Eastern European rock radio sounds like, this band testing our collective limit of teeth-grating and knuckle-cracking, though there's got to be a segment of people who find this appreciable (who are you?), because Second Hand Wonderland is the proprietor of a good amount of buzz in the here and now of summer 2012. If you're old enough, think back to the first time you heard '90s one hit wonder CHUMBAWAMBA. Y'know how you want to immediately just get out of that memory? That's how you're going to feel for the entirety of Second Hand Wonderland's 40+ minutes.
