True to its title, Friko’s second album unfurls like the long-awaited arrival of spring. From the cynical chill of its opener, Something Worth Waiting For baby-steps its way through the unpredictable in-between days of post-hibernation (“Wasn’t it winter three months ago now?” singer Niko Kapetan wonders on one track) toward longer, warmer days. On “Seven Degrees,” he’s “waiting for a summer breeze to throw us in each other’s arms again,” his fragile voice cowering in the face of the record’s densest wall of sound and most fizzly guitar solo. When he gets to the final chorus, he’s yelping and groaning like a wounded animal. Being at the mercy of Something Worth Waiting For’s colossal instrumentation only highlights the strikingness of Kapetan’s trembling tenor.
Friko’s 2024 debut, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, established the Chicago quartet as the heirs apparent to the maximalist, earnest Midwestern indie rock of the 2000s—an Oberstian voice crack here, a wide-eyed-and-butterfly-winged Sufjan string swell there. On their follow-up, Friko has fully embraced these indie theatrics. Here, they’re assisted by titans of the lush, sky-high sounds they’re inheriting: “Certainty”’s gauzy strings come together with the help of composer Jherek Bischoff; John Congleton’s production adds new dimensions to Friko’s emotional palette. Rather than obscure Friko’s ragged, homespun intimacy, these sprawling arrangements help to magnify it.
Friko amps up the grandiosity and meticulous detail across Something Worth Waiting For. On “Certainty,” a violin slices through the line, “You slip on the ice, send your face to the ground” before a frantic piano riff rolls along; its lyrics comprise a miniature fantasy fable populated by castles and “magical things,” held in contrast with the limits of the narrator’s circumstances. The tinny shred and bullseye snare hits of “Still Around” provide an instant adrenaline rush. Its chorus is simple (“You’re still around/Still around”) yet so energetic that Kapetan’s interjections of “Ow!” sound like heat-of-the-moment improvisations every time. The track proves the band can straddle the line between the crafty pluckiness of the Chicago DIY art collective that birthed it and the big-stage theatricality of its forebears. On “Seven Degrees,” Kapetan’s delivery is at a nearly parodic level of affected; on “Hot Air Balloon,” he does a spot-on Dan Bejar impression. He’s most compelling in these moments, when he sounds audibly shaken—like he doubts the words while he’s singing them, or like he’s on the verge of falling apart completely.
It’s thrilling to hear these songs spiral outward, their intricate arrangements centered on Kapetan’s observational lyrics and desperate delivery. But the production level-up feels like a natural next step for Friko, not a sacrifice of the essential scrappiness that was a big part of their debut’s charm. The title track’s intro offers a contrast from the extravagance of songs like “Certainty” and “Hot Air Balloon”: just frenzied strums and Kapetan’s frayed vocals, staticky room tone filling in the empty space. Instead of a reprieve from the rest of the record’s maximalism, it’s a concentration of that nervous energy into a pared-back moment. That sense of exertion is the beating heart of Something Worth Waiting For, a record that’s unabashed about wanting more and the growing pains that come with striving for it. “Fell right in from where we’ve been/To where we’re meant to be,” Kapetan sings on the title track. Take the claim of stumbling as an exercise in humility; Something Worth Waiting For is the sound of a band not tripping into place but clawing its way to the heights of its potential.
