Thirteen years of heavy duty rock and roll, five albums, thousands of miles across Europe, and still feeling awkward when the time comes to write a goddamn biogaphy. But OK, here we go.
2001, Lausanne, Switzerland : KRUGER started playing music and they were met with complete indifference. A first vague album (« Built for speed », self produced), a bunch of gigs with Swiss heroes Knut and Nostromo, a couple of line-up changes, and a second album in 2004 (« Cattle Truck », self produced). Worldwide fame was still quite in its infancy, but the band started playing abroad and catched the eyes and ears of France’s Listenable Records, in full Gojira madness at the time.
Bang: « Redemption through looseness », mixed by Boston mastermind Kurt Ballou, grabbed the world’s attention in 2007. A tasty mix of thick Entombed sound, the roughness of Neurosis, and a bit of Tool lyricism – an album later released on wax through Roadburn Records. The band toured across Europe and got invited to the continent’s most famous greasy spoons (Hellfest, Roadburn, Montreux Jazz, Dour, Transmusicales, Inferno, Paléo, Brutal Assault…). 2010 saw the release of « For death, glory and the end of the world », still on Listenable Records (Pelagic got involved in a gorgeous LP release celebrating the band’s decade), which got KRUGER’s name finally nailed in the midlle of the world post-metal battlefield map. The band was also celebrated as a hell of a live act : far away from their studio tidiness, the Swiss quintet go berserk on any stage, regardless of a variable audience (a nicely wide range of 2 to 2500 lucky ones, according to the band’s records).
In 2013, KRUGER released a two-songs 10’’ before hitting Europe as support for their godfathers Gojira, promising a full-lenghth album soonish. That pledge will be fulfilled October 13th with « Adam and Steve », still produced by the band and mixed by Cult of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg : an 8 tracks, 45 minutes, studio effort honoring KRUGER’s inclination for abrasive Breach-esque melodic bursts, double-kick metallic charges, punkish exuberance, and abstruse lyrical concepts.