It’s been two years since Stockholm heavyweights New Keepers of the Water Towers released their sophomore full-length, The Calydonian Hunt, through MeteorCity, and that span of time has found them making a jump in more than just their label. Issued via Listenable Records, their third album, The Cosmic Child, finds New Keepers of the Water Towers a much more mature, more patient band, embarking on progressive psychedelic sprawl and incorporating acoustics alongside periods of the more expected weighted distortion. Tracks are by and large longer than either the second album (review here) or their Chronicles debut (review here), which compiled two self-released EPs into a 60-minute long-player rife with formative Mastodonic crush, and the three-turned-four-piece don’t shy away from including atmospheric interludes both within the songs and in the form of the closing title-track. All told, The Cosmic Child runs through six tracks in just under 47 minutes, and while there are times where it seems like New Keepers of the Water Towers have wandered beyond their capacity to restore structured order, there’s never actually a moment throughout where the songs get away from them, and the record winds up being as much of a success as it is a surprise, though those diametrically opposed to progressive indulgences will want to stay wary, as The Cosmic Child is full of them right from the beginning of opener “The Great Leveller,” which swirls to a march led by drummer Tor Sjödén and complemented by the guitars of Rasmus Booberg and Victor Berg (Björn Andersson has since joined on bass, but in this liner-noteless digital age, there’s no word on whether or not he’s actually playing on the album). “The Great Leveller” swells to a slow verse plod topped with melodic vocals and open, big-sounding guitar, gradually giving way to the chorus and a chugging rhythm playing out under a grandiose echoing, winding solo. The Mastodon feel isn’t completely gone from New Keepers’ sound – let’s not forget that they too “went prog” – but The Cosmic Child feels less outwardly concerned with showy technicality than it does with mood and atmosphere, “Visions of Death” setting a side-to-side sway in its guitar line that rests on a strong rhythmic foundation between the bassline and the drums.

There’s a current of excellent guitar leads throughout The Cosmic Child, and “Visions of Death” certainly has one in its midsection, but even these are never so over-the-top as to distract from the overall balance of the material, which rests between modern prog metal and heavy psychedelia. At nearly nine and a half minutes, “Visions of Death” presages much of what’s to come thematically from 12-plus-minute cuts like “Pyre for the Red Sage” (12:05) and “Lapse” (12:32), but each piece of the album has an identity of its own that simultaneously works to the benefit of the whole work. This is the best case scenario for a thematic, semi-narrative album, which The Cosmic Child purports to be (no lyric sheet with that download). Piano drives a transition between “Visions of Death” and the subsequent “Pyre for the Red Sage,” which opens with the same line and adds acoustic guitar for its introductory base. By the end of the first full minute, the song has unfolded its grandeur, but as big as it gets – it gets plenty big – there remains a grounding element in a catchy chorus and driving kick bass. Booberg, Berg and Sjödén all handle vocals reportedly, and on “Pyre for the Red Sage,” layers assure that as much largesse is carried across musically, it’s duly met with the singing. Before its halfway point, the track breaks to synth ambience and moves gradually, patiently, over its next couple minutes to post-Floydian prog metal, a thrashy riff running rhythm for a semi-shred solo that works because of the time spent getting to it. The guitar line that follows is one of the more memorable aspects of the song and indeed the album, and it’s met by far-off echoing vocals before a slowdown introduces the acoustics that will carry into “Cosmosis,” typified by a sweet vocal melody and rounding out with a darker electric guitar line that serves as a foreshadow to “Lapse,” the culmination of The Cosmic Child and New Keepers’ most ambitious single work to date.

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If there was one lesson learned from New Keepers of the Water Towers’ MeteorCity debut, Chronicles (review here), it was that the Stockholm four-piece were just getting started in terms of their development, and that despite their abundance of sonic pummel, the really interesting work lay ahead of them. Chronicles was a compilation of two EPs, and two years later, they follow it with The Calydonian Hunt (also MeteorCity), a half-hour full-length that plays off some of the same ideas and influences as Chronicles, but shows an unmistakable sonic growth. The four-piece – who previously were lacking a bassist where now the position is filled by Robin Holmberg, though Edward Hansson also plays on a few tracks – self-recorded The Calydonian Hunt over the course of 2009-2010, but rather than sound sloppily pieced together, the record has such a flow to it that it sounds more like a single-track with different movements, rather than a collection of songs written and recorded during a year’s span. The tracks don’t bleed into each other apart from “Mankind’s Fall” and “Arise, the Serpent,” but there’s a continuity of approach and flow that nonetheless pushes the album smoothly along its plotted course of beastly, bearded riff metal.

Perhaps the biggest point of change between Chronicles and The Calydonian Hunt is New Keepers of the Water Towers’ melodic capability. Vocalist/guitarist Rasmus Booberg (who also handled the album artwork), guitarist/vocalist Victor Berg and drummer/vocalist Tor Sjödén share singing duties well, giving the tracks a varied feel and occasionally – as on “Arise, the Serpent” or the title cut – give the material a dramatic boost that wasn’t there before. Flaming Thyrr of Dead Nugent (about whom I can find absolutely no information) guests on the semi-ballad “Crystal Lake,” kicking off the second half of the album with surprising accessibility that would be all the more so were it not for the production, which seems at all times to play up the heaviest aspects of the band. That song, which follows the interlude “The Call From the Cosmos,” is clearly meant to be a focal point. It took me a couple listens to get what Booberg and company were going for – at first the song sounded overly commercial to my American ears – but then I remembered that in the European market, it’s possible to be both accessible and rocking without necessarily sacrificing one for the other, and in the context of the heaviness surrounding, “Crystal Lake” made a lot more sense. They were trying something new, taking the oh-so-hot-right-now American ethic of blending metal and pop and applying it to a more European sound. It takes some getting used to, but given the melodies of the title track and the burlier closer “The Sword in the Stone,” it’s not so out of place.

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I looked up how far it is from Log-Islet, from whence beastly rockers New Keepers of the Water Towers (MySpace here) hail in Sweden, to Odense, Denmark, where they’re starting their week-long tour of that country, and it’s about eight and a half hours if you take E4 and E20, according to the Go-oogle. Maybe the band knows a shortcut, but that’s a pretty decent ride — not too terrible, doable in a day, but long enough. Good thing when they show up they’ve got plenty of monster heaviness to unleash all their frustration. They’re calling it the Chronicles of the Massive Tour. Here are the show dates:

March 4th. Kansas City Odense
March 5th. Huset Esbjerg
March 6th. Rock Nielsen Aalborg
March 8th. Bryggervej Aarhus
March 10th. The Rock Kopenhagen
March 11th. Gimle Roskilde

Already in the last eight months or so we’ve seen MeteorCity?expand its branding, name and reach beyond the long-stated conceptions of stoner rock, acquiring and promoting acts like Farflung, Elder, Eighteen Wheels Burning?and Leeches of Lore. Braving the international scene, they now release the recently-reviewed Chronicles, by Swedish?beast metal outfit, New Keepers of the Water Towers.

And a beastly outfit they are indeed. Chronicles being comprised of two previously-issued EPs — 2007′s Chronicles of the Massive Boar?and 2008′s The Chronicles of Iceman?– listeners are granted an insider’s view of the band’s early evolution. Guitarist/lead vocalist Rasmus Booberg?took some time out the other day for a quick interview about the beginnings of?New Keepers of the Water Towers, signing to MeteorCity?and what sort of monsters they might conjure in the future. Q&A and some reading music after the jump.

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After a few listens to Chronicles, the MeteorCity debut from Stockholm‘s New Keepers of the Water Towers, it came as no surprise to learn that the hour-long full-length is actually made up of two previously released EPs. The two halves of the album — The Chronicles of Iceman and Chronicles of the Massive Boar — sound just different enough to be really distinguishable from each other, and since each offers a different take on post-Mastodon beast metal, it’s almost like you’re listening to a split between two bands, rather than one whole album.

This obviously has its ups and downs, but you should know what you’re getting into. Fortunately, neither EP sucks. 2008′s The Chronicles of Iceman, being the second New Keepers of the Water Towers (they were just New Keepers at the time) release, builds on the rudimentary beginnings of the band, while Chronicles of the Massive Boar (2007) has a sound that could be a mastered demo of the utmost quality. The kind of band you’d hear and want to sign, capsizing their tales of mythical beasts with powerful, raw chugging riffs and rhythms to strain your neck. Since all three members of the band — guitarist Rasmus Booberg, drummer Tor Sj?d?n and second guitarist Victor Berg (they’ve since added Albin R?nnblad Ericsson on bass) — contribute vocals, there is plenty of variety in the delivery throughout both, from Troy Sanders-style clean speaking/singing to caveman growls and periodic builds where it’s everything at once.

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