MUSIC | Brikkuni are back

The problem with angry music is that it runs the risk of preaching to the converted.

No matter how well-intentioned and artistically pure your intentions are, any political, social or aesthetic message you'd want to bring across runs the risk of remaining locked into a niche, your music appreciated by a mute coven of fans nodding their heads in weary assent.

And if you were to tell me this about Brikkuni circa the release of their first full-length album - Kuntrabanda!, 2008 - I would grudgingly tell you that yes, despite their music being a necessary, thoroughly enjoyable jolt of 'art-folk' (though they insist on calling it 'pop'), their 'angry young man' lyrics chimed in with an audience all too ready to receive them.

But their recently launched second album - Trabokk - might just nudge their music into more universal territory.

And judging by the 1,000-plus turnout at the album's launch concert on February 11, this might not be a vain hope.

It would be a stretch to label Trabokk as a 'concept album' but one of the ways it differs from its shambolic predecessor is that is boasts a thematic coherence. True to the title, a fistful of the songs concern imprisonment of some sort or other.

L-Ufficju - a relatively old number which had won the band an Ghanja tal-Poplu award, and which now has a video - is a melancholy elegy dedicated to anyone who's been made to suffer through the daily grind.

Similarly, It-Tnejn is a sweet-and-sour evocation of the half-dream state most of us suffer through during our Monday morning commute.

Other songs tell of a more subtle entrapment. Nixtieq is a wistful lament about wanting to live in a better world while recognising one's own shortcomings, while Tiddi x-xemx fuq din l-ghodwa mohlija lends emotion to sloth - and despite its hardly grandiose subject matter, the six-minute song is probably the most affecting piece on the album.  

But it's not all doom and gloom, and while Trabokk lacks the punky, bouncy numbers that made its predecessor such a concert hit - such as Gadazz Giljan and Kollox Suggettiv - a couple of songs still come laced with the requisite 'grinta' that's part and parcel of the Brikkuni sound.

Il-Gallinar Tas-Sultan, the first song off the new album to be unleashed onto live audiences (purple chicken dancers and all) is a colourful allegory about the internal politics of a chicken coop, and builds to a rousing crescendo that welcomes in a gypsy element.

Zonqor will also prove to be a mosh pit hit, with its defiant chant of 'mhux mhux mhux', jolly trombone lacings and a couple of genius lines (xtaqt immut ghalikom/izda lhaqt ftehimt mar-Rumani).

Brikkuni may have become more introspective, but they're still political as ever. The only difference is that the lyrics are more artful in their approach: there's less ranting and more storytelling - songs like Cikku c-Cinkwina, Kunsenturi (a welcome burst of ska) and Sigrieti are a testament to this.

My only real complaint is that, despite being more mature than its predecessor, the album is a bit of a gloomy affair. But this fact will, at least, keep us guessing about what the pack of scoundrels will be up to next.

Though to be fair, the album also boasts one Brikkuni's 'naughtiest' tracks to date: Irkotta, which, in the words of Brikkuni's front man Mario Vella, is dedicated to "everybody's local MILF..."

Trabokk can be purchased from http://brikkuni.com/.