Year Of Metal #082: Krokus - Krokus
For Swiss rockers Krokus, the road to success has been a long one. I’d be hard pressed to name a lot of bands from the Alpine region, so perhaps that stands to reason, but by the time the ‘80s kicked into gear and they’d sharpened their sound after seeing AC/DC, they became a serious act, going four times Swiss platinum (160,000 copies - no mean feat) with their fourth record and breaking the rest of Western Europe and the USA in the decade that followed.
We’re talking about their first album here, a self titled curio from 1975 that isn’t on Spotify and was apparently pressed just 560 times. The version on YouTube has evidently been ripped off one of said records - often not especially well, as plenty of the songs stop mid-stride when the needle is lifted early to avoid additional editing. It’s also really not, in any way, a metal album, instead closer to a prog rock, often pastoral sound with polyrhythms and an often rather sloppy feel to the playing and recording.
To that end, I pretty much loved this album. If the next 15 years of Krokus sees them tightening up and becoming an AC/DC tribute act, I’ll get off the train right here, thanks. Krokus commit to the hard rock sound for all of 20 seconds. Opener “Majale” has a nice country fried, Jimmy Page-esque riff and some slapping drums, but as soon as the vocal harmonies start, I’m put in the mind of one of my favourite records, Meat Puppets’ oft-atonal Up On The Sun. They jam out well and they’re clearly talented musicians, but the charmingly dashed off sound belies a group without a lot of money behind the bar. They’re just some dudes in Bern, fucking around and playing their weird songs. Eight years later they’d be on a Sony subsidiary in Orlando, Florida. Where’s the fun in that?
What they lack in budget, they make up for in occasionally fantastic ideas. My favourite track on Krokus by a mile is “Angela Part 1”. This is a strange, quasi-new wave shuffle with an unhinged choir going up and down scales while someone called Ribo B. Boulding vibes away on the congas. Suddenly there’s a drop, and we’re into full glam rock swagger, bass solos, wah wah, the lot. That ends, and we’re back to the good time grooves as though nothing ever happened. I’d like to think David Byrne would enjoy this song.
Things get deeper and weirder on the record’s second side. “Insalata Mysta” is less stand out and more freak out, leaning towards Barrett-era Floyd with some of the most complex structures and playing the album has to boast. It swells to a superb solo, then a nervy, choppy section with chirruping, angular guitars. I could hear a band like Devo doing something similar to this a few years down the line. I don’t know if Krokus returned anywhere close to this well again - it’s safe to assume this LP didn’t inspire too many at the time - but they’re ahead of the curve and no mistake with this gear.
They cap it all off with the most down-the-line rocker on the album, “Just Like Every Day”. It’s notable that they’re nowhere near as convincing in this mode. It’s a fairly hookless driving rock number which is notable mainly for Kiefer’s delightful inability to hit the notes with any kind of force (perhaps unsurprisingly he was removed from lead vocal duties LP prior to his 1981 death - I really like his strangled yelp, but it’s much more suited to the weirdo tunes).
The duff closer is all the indication I need that I don’t need to listen to anything else by this band. The cover of Krokus is two sexy butterflies posing before a washed out city skyline; by record number four, it’s two stupid cars crashing into each other. I know which one I prefer (to be absolutely fair, the German cover of album three is a peeled banana made of coins - now that, I like).
