Friko count themselves as part of the young, burgeoning “Hallogallow” rock collective of the Chicago scene, yet they don’t really sound entirely like their peers in Horsegirl, Lifeguard, and Cruel in the way each of those artists are respectively resurrecting ’90s DIY indie rock aesthetics through a fresh perspective in unbridled electricity. On their debut full-length, Where we’ve been, where we go from here, you can hear rumblings of that on a standout like “Crashing Through”, but their Gen-Z nostalgia also winces a decade further to Aughts blog rock that came to define the culture of the mid-late 2000s, which honestly, probably feels like it’s coming fast to those who are now old enough to remember it. The duo of lead vocalist and guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger — initially a trio, with original bassist Luke Stamos recording his parts before exiting the band before the album’s release — are fucking with timeline delineations in that sense where the listen speaks entirely to a different demographic of listeners who have exhibited an uncanny ability to yearn for the years they weren’t even alive on this Earth as if they were in fact there. You have to give credit to Friko’s audacity in merging these eras in ways its originators had never thought, because up until now, these respective eras of indie rock rarely bled over, and here, you’ve got these agents of chaos placing an ornamental twee ballad like “For Ella” right next to the blissed out highlight “Chemical” and a subsequent emotive afterburn in “Statues”. It can be a challenging string of sonic information for everything we’ve come to expect out of an independent rock album in 2024 to parse. This really puts into perspective everything Friko set out to do in the album’s title, however: The potential is all theirs to reshape rock’s future with what they know.

Highlight: “Where We’ve Been”, “Crashing Through” “Chemical”

Friko’s Where we’ve been, where we go from here is available now on ATO Records.

Buy | Stream