EP review: Wraptors – self-titled

Meet southern Sweden’s Wraptors. To judge by the little photo on their biog, it’d be reasonable to expect them to position themselves musically amongst Scandinavia’s vast army of retro-influenced rock’n'roll bands – there are check shirts and Texas tractor-pull facial hair in evidence. A listen to this self-titled EP would reveal that assumption to be at least partly valid, as Wraptors play their own take on power trio rock – one much infused with a prog aesthetic.

Prog’n'roll? Well, yeah, pretty much – and if the very notion makes you recoil in horror, then Wraptors aren’t likely to flick your switches. On the other hand, if the idea of a stripped-down incarnation of The Hellacopters doing a King Crimson tribute album after binge-listening to post-rock and post-hardcore sounds not just intriguing but actively attractive… well, you may just have found your new favourite band.

The Wraptors EP kicks off with some brief and choppy rock’n'roll chords before the sudden arrival of a riff that’s somehow angular and sinuous at once. Kristofer Ronstrom’s vocals sound like a younger more laid-back Nicke Royale was sat behind the kit battering out those subtly intricate loops; the riffs and melodies seem simple in close-up, but their willingness to quest way outside the established clichés of rock’n'roll while still keeping a toe inside the chalk circle makes for engaging listening. Likewise the complex structures: the songs are packed with little two- and four-bar breaks that never appear twice, and the riffs vary organically, mutating, intuitively improvising their way from moody jazz and prog to a slimmed-down Sabbath creep and back again.

End result? No two songs sound quite the same – and I mean that as a compliment. Wraptors have their own recognisable sound, but it’s inclusive enough that they can keep it from getting boring or hackneyed, at least at EP length. “Noise Strikes 10″ begins with a sixties-psyche scatter of chords and beats before settling into the lazy-lidded almost-grooves that are Wraptors‘ stock in trade; there’s lots of breathing space between the drums and the bass and the guitar, they’re painting by delineating the gaps rather than the objects themselves. And wow, what a chorus – great hooky melody, natural harmony singing, over almost before you’ve had time to pay attention. Winner.

“Nuclear Assault”- presumably not a tribute to the band of the same name (though I might be wrong) – features mellow pentatonic meanderings that give way to the sort of intricate fill-as-riff intervals that the post-metal bands deploy, but Wraptors have shorn them of their distortion fleeces. Meanwhile, “Make an Aim” is probably the most straightforward rock’n'roll tune here, but even that is tempered by Wraptors‘ attention to detail and incessant invention.

In case it’s not plain already, I really like Wraptors on the basis of this EP; I’m a sucker for good bluesy rock’n'roll, but the addition of the progressive sensibility at the levels of song structure and riff writing lifts them above the crowd of clones and makes them something unique in my experience. If there are more bands doing this sort of thing, please tell me about them; until then, I’m going to keep an eye on the interwebs in hope that some promoter or manager does the right thing and gets Wraptors playing over here in the UK – sooner rather than later.