'Hellfire Review' - OOR Magazine (www.oor.nl) - November 2005

After Generation Nix, X, Trix, Q and Y we've arrived at the iPod Shuffle generation. Kids who don’t care about musical genres, and skip happily through Neophyte, Metallica, Jay-Z and The Prodigy. And that while they're texting, mailing, mms-ing and son on and so forth.
Jason Kohnen who has been active as Bong-Ra since 1998, has no holds barred when it comes to sticking to a certain musiacal syle and sees the history of music as a huge tapas bar, munching away at all the little bits.
On his third full length album, Bong-Ra returns, shuffling through many genres, to early 90's UK Rave, the period when The Prodigy still made good tunes. Especially in tracks like 'Redrum' (in which Bong-Ra is accompanied by Rotterdam hip-hop MC Mike Redman) and 'White Horse Come Soon' we get those flashbacks of those energetic, uplifting, rocking energy of rave from back then, with thnks to the presence of guitars.
Also immediately the best tracks of the album. Hanin Elias (ex-Atari Teenage Riot) shows her qualities on 'Go Tiger!', Ras Bumpa reaches back to Bong-Ra's Yardcore sound and on 'Pop That Cristal' we here the return of hardcore gabba. John Peel was right when he discovered Kohnen. His Peel session, which was chosen as one of the 125 best ever, was totally deserved. With the powerful 'I am the God of Hellfire!' Bong-Ra doesn't yet manage to knock breakcore emperor Venetian Snares off his throne, but proves himself a worthy second. This Utrecht brekcore prophet still doesn’t get enough recognition here in homeland Holland. Hopefully the Shuffle Generation will bring change to this in the near future. [Alex van der Hulst]
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'Hellfire Review' - Kindamuzik (www.kindamuzik.net) - January 2006

In an interview with Kindamuzik late 2005, Jason Kohnen mentioned that his primal goal with releasing 'I am The God of Hellfire!' was to achieve the musical buzz that Rave and Breakbeat gave him in the early nineties. Besides that it seemed that this Breakcore icon wasn't afraid to step away from usual genre conventions. Both of these aspects are strongly present on this, his third full length album, that amazingly contains a huge variety of influences relentlessly combined with a totally unique sound. On 'I am the God of Hellfire!' Bong-Ra goes to work with the assistance of various vocalists. His instrumental tracks burst out with heavy rave stabs and filled with complex beats, hard synths and countless structure variations that make dancing to this sound very inviting as well as very difficult.
Genres seemed to have vanished: 'White Horse Come Soon' could easily have fit into an experimental Aquasky breakbeat mix, 'Skool Ov Violence' and 'Come Out To Play' return to Bong-Ra's breakcore sound from his 'Bikini Bandits, Kill! Kill! Kill!' album, on 'Kill The Sound' he warps back to oldschool breakbeat and jungle moves, and gives the listener an intense break with 'Serpent Tongue For The Blues'.
Bong-Ra isn't just varied in his sound, but he is good a combining too. Together with Mike Redman he wanders in the unchartered territories of experimental hip-hop, together with ex-ATR frontwoman Hanin Elias he produces something in the vein of 'triphopcore', and the usual dancehall and ragga flavours appear in vocal tracks with Ras Bumpa in 'The Claw' and Mona Lisa on 'Chump Chump'. Without forgetting vocal participation of Drop The Lime and MC Quest One, you've got an album the has as much width as it has depth, and which basically works throughout the whole album.
So will 'I am the God of Hellfire!' become the blueprint to beats played in clubs or a household name ?
In the previously mentioned interview with Kohnen foresees that fact that his sound is ahead of the mainstream, so most probably it will take the serious dance freak until around 2008 until he or she can go mental to this sound, and with the current neotrance and minimaltech hype it seems unlikely that Bong-Ra will be breaking through any time soon. That doesn’t mean that listeners who have balls and an urge for electronic progression and are nto Yolk, Technical Itch, Acen, Venetian Snares or Atrai Teenage Riot will appreciate this album very much.

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'Hellfire Review' - FRET (www.npi.nl) - December 2005

Just when you thought you had recovered from Bong-Ra's 'Warrior Sound' compilation CD, we're assaulted by his newest release. Strapping yourself into your seat to ..... The usual bombardment of raggasamples and thrashing beats, it suddenly dawns: they've been excluded! A natural progression: seeing that the rave elements have been seeping through sneakily into Jason Kohnen's tracks, they have now become the dominating factor. Still using shitloads of heavy samples and mainly using tempos under 160 BPM, the result brings a threatening, claustrophic atmosphere which has always present in his music, but now, especially because of the clearer production can come to the prefect blossoming. That and the fact that guest vocals are provided by Mike Redman, Drop The Lime, Ras Bumpa and ex-Atari Teenage Riot singer Hanin Elias we have here Bong-Ra's most varied and deepest album till now.

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'Hellfire Review' - Boomkat UK - December 2005

Now available on vinyl. Even to its many devotees, a full LP of bone-shaking breakcore can be a daunting proposition, but thanks to Bong-Ra's willingness to step away from the 'amen', the genre might have just produced its first genuine crossover. Knee-deep in his love of all things rave, 'I Am The God of Hellfire' is riddled throughout by pitch-shifted vocals and old-skool synth stabs; allowing Jason Kohnen (aka Bong-Ra) the room to furnish the foreground with a less frenetic breed of breaks, whilst not sacrificing the latent energy which characterises the genre in any way, shape or form. Opening with the lolloping Vicks Vapour beats of 'Skool on Violence', Kohnen really begins to stretch his legs on the Mike Redman hook-up 'Redrum'; wherein a static f*cked rhythm is shredded by the lightening quick lexicon of Redman, a trick which is repeated on the incendiary 'Pop That Crystal'. Break-hop at its most fierce. Elsewhere, ex-Atari Teenage Riot girl Hanin Elias gamely wades into the sleazy beat-storm of 'Go Tiger!', Drop the Lime lends his support on the balls-to-the-wall chaos of 'Bert Is Evil', whilst Ras Bumpa proves a perfect counterpoint to Kohnen on 'Crack in the Mirror'. A baptism of fire......