Friko are back, and they mean business. The Chicago band has announced Something Worth Waiting For, their second album and follow-up to 2024's celebrated debut Where We've Been, Where We Go From Here. It arrives April 24 on ATO Records — and based on the lead single 'Seven Degrees,' the band has been doing exactly what the title says.
'Seven Degrees' finds the expanded Friko — now a quartet, with guitarist Korgan Robb and bassist David Fuller joining founding duo Niko Kapetan and Bailey Minzenberger — leaning into their most anthemic tendencies. The song is big and bright and slightly reckless, the kind of guitar-forward indie rock that doesn't feel fashionable and doesn't care. The video involves RC car racing on a dirt track, which is the correct aesthetic choice.
The album was produced by John Congleton, whose credits include Angel Olsen, Mannequin Pussy, and St. Vincent. Congleton has a gift for making guitar albums that feel textured and alive rather than flat, and on the evidence of 'Seven Degrees,' he's found the right frequency for Friko's particular energy.
Kapetan described the album's theme in a press statement: 'If the general theme of the record is transit, then the title gets at the idea of always moving toward something you never quite seem to reach.' That's a clean, honest piece of self-analysis. Friko's debut was about beginnings; this appears to be about the strange suspended feeling of being in the middle of something.
Where We've Been finished at No. 8 on Pitchfork's Best Rock Albums of 2024 list. The sophomore album pressure is real, and the band is meeting it by expanding the lineup, changing the producer, and shooting a video with remote control cars. This is the correct approach.