THE DIARY OF THE MISSED ONE

The Ukrainian KROBAK ("хробак" in the Ukrainian language and means "worm") started as the one-man solo project of guitarist Igor Sydorenko who has gained more attention with his other project Stoned Jesus. While starting out in the city of Sverdlovsk, the project has carried on in the capital city of Kyiv with Asya Makarova (bass), Marko Nykoliuk (violin) and Natasha Pirogova (drums) joining in to create a real band experience.

KROBAK was initially started as a post-rock project inspired by acts such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Yndi Halda, E and Mono but evolved over the band's 12 year existence to include aspects of King Crimson, Swans and The Mars Volta to name a few. KROBAK didn't really become a band until 2012 but Sydorenko released an EP, several splits and this debut album THE DIARY OF THE MISSED ONE as the sole performer of guitars, bass, drums and samples.

This debut only featured three long tracks yet adds up to 47 minuets of playing time with the lengthiest track being the near 21-minute avant-garde closer "The Fried Bull's Blues." The album opens with "Park Luny" which starts with some Chinese music before morphing into a beefy bass groove that allows the clean post-rock guitar riffs and chilled out percussive backup to take off. At 11 minutes long, the track more or less adheres to the basic melody that started it but alternates between varying guitar tricks including the faster tremolo picking styles. The atmosphere is both menacing and rather chilled out simultaneously.

"By The Music Of The Autumn Trees" starts off with some guitar harmonics but quickly becomes a more recognizable post-rock style in the vein of Explosions In The Sky and drifts on for almost 15 minutes. The track pretty much stays in the mellow mode for its entirety with some later motifs threatening to break into a Godspeed You! Black Emperor thundering roar but never quite evolves past a simple chugging session while the dreamy atmospheres remain audible. Unfortunately the cacophonous climax that is insinuated never comes to fruition thus one of the main drawbacks of this album, namely lack of contrasts in dynamics however overall it's a pleasant ride that offers other varying stylistic shifts within the context of the melodic groove.

The most experimental and avant-garde is the closing "'The Fried Bull's Blues'' which opens with formless swirls of sound and then becomes a strange overlay of improvised sounds which reminds more of some of the most bizarre 20th century classical artists than anything in the world of post-rock. It takes a good 3 minutes plus for a bass groove and soft drumbeat to emerge which ushers in the post-rock riffing that builds up to a heavier guitar stomping session with a backing guitar adding screeching licks and solos. After some arpeggiated clean guitar motifs it turns into noise rock with no clear rhythmic drive and just nebulous guitar chords nonchalantly sounding like a drunken garage rock band. The noise rock style adopts the post-rock processional drive and drifts to its ending while avant-garde improvisational guitar noise screeches on for the ride.

This one is a mixed bag actually. The first two tracks are OK but nothing really outstanding. The third one is the most interesting in its wild experimentalism but only showcases the lackadaisical approach of the first two in its unrelenting abandonment of orthodoxies. It also lacks any clear purpose and an exercise in pretty much creating random guitar chucks with heavy distortion and a need for sustain.

Overall it's a decent album but not anything that really elevates to the level of essential listening experience for sure. Nowhere near the greats of the world of post-rock but not unpleasant to listen to in the least. Once KROBAK became a real band the style would become more sophisticated and laced with actual progressive rock moments. But this one not so much.