Jinjer - Kafka

Once more unto Friday, dear friends, once more. Your rallying cry for the best in rock and metal comes, as always, from this very site (and our Facebook page, if you care to give it a visit!). And on this fine Friday, we are not taking a trip into the distant past; rather, not much more than a week at the time of writing. We dig out the ancient classics and we find the fresh stuff, too! We’re like the world’s best and worst greengrocers.

To the music! JINJER aren’t the freshest kids on the block, but to describe their rise in the last few years as “meteoric” seems to be too light a word. Their “pick a genre, any genre” approach blends weirdly well with their down-tuned assault on the senses of anyone within five miles as a baseline. Groove metal? Sure! Alternative metal? Why not? Reggae? Throw it in there, the audience can take it. The audience did better than take it; they received it gratefully, propelling the band into the stratosphere. 

While JINJER as it stands came together in 2009, the band’s original line-up made their first appearance a year earlier. The Ukrainian four-piece would have had an understandably hectic few years even without becoming global stars given the invasion of their homeland but, after a brief hiatus to help with the relief effort, they were given the freedom of Ambassadorship to tour, spread awareness, and raise funds. And tour they did; it’s astonishing they managed to make new music with how long they spent on the road between 2022 and now. It’s the newest of the new we’re focusing on this week, with an effort from their newest album that is nothing short of stonking. While the rest of the album hits like a truck with gloves off, Kafka is a rolling groove machine that trades the dual-threat (and simply awesome) guttural/clean vocal talents of lead singer Tatiana Shmayluk for a performance with fewer growls but no less presence. 

So don’t be fooled by a JINJER song that is a little mellower than you expect; this thing will still smack you around plenty. If you’ve never heard of the band before (somehow) let our Rock Song of the Week pick be your first of many experiences of what they have to offer, because there’s something for everyone if you can handle being beaten about the head a little bit. And let’s face it, we’ve been doing this for long enough that we’re immune to elbows at this point.