Selo Na Okuke / Village Tracks

The band name (pronounced Kree-ess) means ‘Bonfire’ in old Croatian dialect, but Kries certainly aren't incinerating the old folk songbooks. These tunes are all, believe it or not, traditional, though they have been recalibrated into the hardest folk rock. The Kries instrumentation has bagpipes, flutes, lijerica (a bowed lute/fiddle hybrid) and percussion to the fore, but not without an ever-present bolstering by electric guitar, bass and drumkit. It's been eight years since their last album, so there is much pent-up energy to release in the Dubrovnik studio.

The chief Kries mode is full-thrust, with booming drums, pulsing bass and a lusty male chorus, led by founding lead singer Mojmir Novaković, he of the deeply theatrical bull-roar. ‘Sestrica Pavlova’ is about the only song that calms into a soffer side, stripped down with sensuous wooden flute, and possessing a filmic drama. Otherwise, the time signatures veer from tricky skipping to full-on romping. The jerking guitar rift and bagpipe bursts of ‘Skoči Kolo’ are markedly unusual, but it's Novaković's striking vocals that really provide the band with a powerful, mythic-sounding resonance.