Kwang

The harsh guitars of glam rock on For What It's Worth remind me of the days when radios blared Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses like they were going out of style (which they were). Fortunately for fans still holding on to their favorite acid-washed jeans, Kwang are keeping razor-sharp rock 'n' roll alive.

For What It's Worth is Kwang's latest release, and their second full-length. The local group's influences are obvious—KISS, Cheap Trick, Mötley Crüe, and Van Halen, all of which seem to have been melded together and cast into a local mold on this disc. Their Minnesota pride hits home with the track "Rock and Roll! Baseball! Big Tornados!," a little shout-out to all things great in the neighborhood. The whiny-man voice and motivated beat make it a perfect mix-tape track, best for blasting out the windows of a white van.

In their press materials, Kwang promise "real" rock, which, in their case, seems to mean '70s rock. The tracks here flex between punk-inspired bangers to slow, emotional downers like "Sad Letters."

Their album is lined with relentless guitar mauling and vocals old Mr. Johnston downstairs (or next door, or two-houses-down, for that matter), won't appreciate. This band will rock you till your ears bleed—it's up to you to determine whether you find that enjoyable.

Amber Schadewald
- City Pages

Thanks to its fat glam-rock licks and carefree sense of humor, Kwang's "For What It's Worth" has become one of my most-played local discs of the year. It's the perfect soundtrack for a long drive with the windows down and the volume up.

Ross Raihala - St. Paul Pioneer Press

John Knapper appeared to be on top of the world Saturday night May 19th as his band Kwang celebrated the release of their new CD For What It’s Worth at the Uptown Bar. And for good reason. The new 10-song Kwang album is rocking and fun, and Knapper’s band's stage show is campy, yet quality, including just enough hamming it up to keep it real while still treating their Kiss, Aerosmith and GnR-influenced rock with respect. In addition to Knapper, Kwang features Justin Marreel on lead guitar (Marreel played plenty of solos Saturday), Dan Laubach (also of The Skullcranes) on bass, who played almost the entire show with his hand in a bandage after getting 32 stitches in it the night before after an encounter with an electric saw (how rock and roll is that?) And Jonathon TeBeest sits behind the drum kit.

Kwang played their album straight though tightly and professionally, but might have had done without the GnR cover that provided one of the encores. Album producer Darren Jackson joined them on stage to help perform an apparently mostly unrehearsed rendition of “Patience,” and combined with the bemused look on Jackson’s face, he kind of summed it up when he asked, before beginning what was to become a bit of a trainwreck of a song, "Are we really going to do this?" The audience was having so much fun by that point, however, they ate it up anyway.

David de Young - Howwastheshow.com