As the motorcycling season draws to an end around these parts, Balkan Express will take a look at a band has little to do with burning rubber and liquid dinosaurs but are still all in on speed and energy. We’ll take a ride with Kawasaki 3P.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, Kawasaki 3P are a punk band. Specifically, a Croatian punk band from the country’s capital, Zagreb. They’ve been around for three decades, which – given the usual half-life of punk bands in the region – is positively ancient. But they’ve also taken their sweet time making themselves known.

Kawasaki 3P were founded way back in 1993. The old country just went to hell in a handbasket and Croatia was in the middle of a war of independence that sometimes felt like an onset of another autocratic regime in the Balkans. But despite becoming quite well known and critically acclaimed, it took the band ten years to release their first album.

They are primarily a punk band. But as a seven-member act and with a wide variety of musical instruments at their disposal, punk turns out to be a very broad description of their music. They are equally comfortable in ska, reggae and every permuation thereof, that you can imagine.

Weirdly enough, their breakthrough moment came at the 2003 Croatian Eurosong competition. A hitherto nice little pop music event full of ballads that ruin your sugar profile, it was suddenly exposed to the raspy voice of Tomislav Vukelić – Tomfa and a brass section that refused to play nice. And although not winning the contest (duh!), Kawasaki 3P became an instant sensation.

That said, Kawasaki 3P did go through its share of permutations and lineup changes. In fact, the list of their former members is almost twice as long as the list of their active members. Of the four founding members, only Tomfa remains. Today, his vocals are backed up by guitarists Toni Babarović and Davor Viduka, trumpeters Igor Pavlica and Stipe Mađor, bass guitarist Mario Boršćak and drummer Nikola Babić

To date, Kawasaki 3P released six albums, with four studio releases and two special issues. Their 2009 album Idu Bugari (there go the Bulgarians) is considered their most popular work, but thr e 2015 release titled Goli zbog pasa / Naked 'cause of the Dog got the best critical reception by far.

And that's all the time we have for today. Check out Kawasaki 3P on YouTube, Spotify and wherever you get your music from, and Balkan Express will be back next week.

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Balkan Express brings you the latest and/or the greatest in music from the Balkans. On air every Tuesday at 11am on Ara City Radio, it is hosted by Aljaž aka @pengovsky who once did the world a solid and vowed never to sing again in public. Which is how he ended up doing radio.