Kroko - Furia
(Verdura)
Kroko - Rabia
(Rabia)
While it's easy to forget that there exist Finnish imports into the domestic music market that aren't of the metal variety, Kroko's heady prog is something of a decidedly different nature. The trio, Jussi Ylikoski, Petri Hissa, and Pentti Dassum, are craftsmen of music that's ever-changing, shifting in mood and intensity, but never (well, rarely) abandoning the beauty and destruction captured on the cover's photo of a burning building in the dark night. A mix of studio and live tracks from the turn of the millennium, Furia makes it quite obvious that Ylikoski, Hissa, and Dassum are either well-schooled, well-listened, or both, as Kroko's music touches upon numerous styles with ease, and the trio are able to seamlessly mine the languages of prog, jazz, garage rock, and post rock with little trouble.
The opening snore of "On Fahrenheit and Little Bit Celsius" surely isn't a sign of what's to come, as, from there on out, there's very little in Kroko's repertoire that's either as complacent or relaxed. A ragged propulsion powers the trio's music, which reeks of a wonderful instability, as if a flurry of notes from the guitar or an especially raucous drum crescendo might cause them to combust. Furai isn't all about muscle and power, however, there's a discernible method to Kroko's madness, evident not only in their more complex concoctions, but also in the instrumental interplay during even the less fiery moments of the disc. It's easy to get caught up in the distorted guitar leads that crumble into feedback, and the barn-burning nature of much of Kroko's work, but without an acknowledgment of the more refined intelligence that provides the backbone of much of the music, one would be selling Kroko short. It's not just contained in the few more sonorous pieces that are interspersed throughout Furia, but behind their most molten of meltdowns, as well, evidenced by the compositional flexibility that's beneath the flurries of notes.
Rabia, the group's second disc, finds Kroko as a duo, though Ylikoski's still featured on a third of the album. It's more of the same, with rampaging prog, mellow tracks that, surprisingly, are still a welcome addition to the album, and trashy, noisy slabs of improv. The departure of Ylikoski's bass isn't a huge factor for Hissa and Dassum, it seems, as their music shows no ill effects due to the loss. Dassum's guitar is even more at the forefront of the music, with searing flurries of notes, and soaring arcs of flaming sound. As with the band's debut, much of Rabia is made up of live recordings, this time made even more convoluted and clamorous with a stereo mix featuring different live performances of the track in each speaker (the twelfth track is actually split three ways). The music in the different channels, of course, isn't always in sync, though this little imperfection and the disorientation it can create are some of the album's best moments. "Burning Soul," one of the disc's few studio tracks, is the best of Kroko's more relaxed material, though, as with all of Rabia, it would fit well on the band's debut, as well. This second effort isn't too far a stretch from what Kroko had accomplished on their introductory release, but Kroko's compositional sense is varied enough that they still manage to cram more stylistic touches into one or two songs than many bands do in a whole career.
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