A great indie-rock album can shake you out of your malaise and make you feel something—not only on an abstract atomic level that you can’t always articulate, but also on a more practical level where you want to high-five your best friend while triumphantly blazing donuts in the parking lot of your old high school. Friko’s music seems scientifically designed for such slow-motion-worthy moments, eliciting an equal ratio of cathartic tears and “hell yeahs.” It’s also pure catnip for diary-toting indie-heads, echoing giants like Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith while never coming off as obvious as derivative. On the Chicago band’s debut LP, the preciously titled Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, they’re powered by two key engines: drama and dynamics. Take opener “Where We’ve Been,” which summarizes their full range in five riveting minutes—shifting from acoustic to electric, clean fingerpicking to distorted violence, major to minor, whisper-quiet to deafeningly loud, in tune to out of tune, weepy warble to agonizing scream. It’s an appropriate gesture of grandeur for a band that thrives on big moves, whether they’re leaning into chamber-pop piano-and-strings balladry (“For Ella”), chasing a proggy mutation of power-pop (“Crimson to Chrome”) or finding some arty space that defies categorization. (“Chemical” sweeps up baritone chants and math-y, call[1]and-response freak-outs into its vortex.) Prepare to feel something.