As was the case with their self-titled debut, Asteroid’s second album, II (Fuzzorama), reveals its personality more and more with time and repeat listens. Many bands strive for this for their whole career — to make a record that gets richer the more you hear it — but to the Swedish trio of vocalist/bassist Johannes Nilsson, vocalist/guitarist/organist Robin Hirse and drummer Elvis Campbell, it at least seems to come naturally.

In fact, if there’s a word to encapsulate II, it would probably be “natural.” The band has loosened the structural reins somewhat compared to the first record, and in so doing has allowed a series of heady jams to take place within the songs that doesn’t just make the album different from what came before it, but introduces a creative freedom that wasn’t necessarily evident last time around. Very quickly over the course of a duo of solid outings, Asteroid is one of Sweden’s brightest and fuzziest hopes.

Nilsson took some time out for an email exchange about the band’s shift in approach, the recording process that went into making II and where they think they might go from here. If this album is anything to judge by, that could be pretty much anywhere.

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Okay, maybe not, but I was intensely glad to be able to get my hands on a copy of the first Fuzzorama Records release (fuzz CD001), Fuzzsplit of the Century, featuring Truckfighters and Firestone. Neither band is stranger to these parts, Truckfighters having released one of my favorite albums of last year in Mania, and Firestone’s Stonebeliever EP having been covered in a previous Buried Treasure, but to get them both on this split CD from 2003, when Truckfighters were really just getting going and Firestone was on their way out, was too much for me to resist. Fortunately, Freebird Records had a copy on the (relatively) cheap and I grabbed it from their mailorder.

In a way, it’s a “what you see is what you get”-type scenario. While the “of the Century” is as debatable as any claim of anything being the greatest anything ever is, I won’t argue it’s a fantastic bit of fuzz both bands grow from out their Orange amps. We already know Oskar Cedermalm is the link between the groups (he played guitar in Firestone and handles bass and vocals in Truckfighters), but what’s more interesting about Fuzzsplit of the Century is precisely what was alluded to in the paragraph above: hearing Truckfighters in their beginnings and what could probably be called the most realized version of Firestone before their dissolution.

As someone who encountered Truckfighters first with the Gravity X album, their more nascent approach here is less assured, and, though it carries the seeds that in context can be seen as what would later become Mania’s progressive bent, less established. They were a young band in 2003. Firestone, on the other hand, had their mission clear from the outset and so sound like the tighter unit. Of course, it’s worth saying that both bands were fuzzy as all hell at this stage in their careers.

It was a kind of curiosity purchase, bought basically so I could hear the roots of one of Sweden’s top riffing outfits, and though Fuzzsplit of the Century certainly isn’t their best group of songs, it’s a fascinating go-through nonetheless, and worth investigation for anyone who’s been mesmerized by their work since. And since Firestone remains a mystery to me (they released several EPs that, so far, seem impossible to find), having five more tracks of them at their best is definitely a win.

Why, it feels like less than a month ago, I was putting up a review of Swedish post-doomers Kongh’s second album, Shadows of the Shapeless. Oh wait, that was less than a month ago. Well, in the time since, Kongh have hit the big time and premiered a track via our friends over at BrooklynVegan.com. The song is called “Voice of the Below,” and because BV’s a little less tightassed with their hosting than some of their more corporatized fellow outlets, here it is, followed by some PR wire info:

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Appearing on the Swedes’ second album, Shadows of the Shapeless, “Voice of the Below” shows off the band’s intense brand of progressive doom metal. Kongh’s sound covers vast musical ground — from forward-charging sludge metal to icy doom to ambient rock — yet it is delivered seamlessly and with unstoppable momentum.

Shadows of the Shapeless sees its first official US release on March 30 via Seventh Rule Recordings. Shadows of the Shapeless was originally released in Europe by Trust No One Recordings (Isis, Khanate, Cult of Luna) in 2009.

We were all saddened last year to read that Swedish heavy rock legends Dozer were calling it even temporary quits so that Fredrik Nordin could go back to school. I mean, if you gotta do it, you gotta do it — it’s not unreasonable — it’s just a bummer because it means no Dozer records.

The upshot as I saw it then was that it would give guitarist Tommi Holoppa more time to work on Greenleaf with Vaka-mainman and ex-Demon Cleaner drummer Karl Daniel Lidén. As it turns out, Holoppa is going to be working with Lidén, and Dozer bassist Johan Rockner as well — and a yet-unnamed singer — but on a new project, which The Obelisk is glad to reveal will be called Dahli.

Lidén has hinted that Dahli’s music will take a heavier direction, but in the brief Q&A below, the talented multi-instrumentalist and producer gets more specific than he has yet about the project and what the goals are for the new band. As ever, the interview is after the jump. Enjoy.

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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

Echoes of YOB’s The Unreal Never Lived pop up on Swedish trio Kongh’s sophomore full-length, whether it’s the driving rhythm that built tension “Quantum Mystic” transposed onto opener “Unholy Water” or the malevolent triplet riffing of “The Mental Tyrant” in the closing title track. By keeping their sound generally darker, though, and adding elements vocally and otherwise out of black metal, Kongh make it through the five tracks of Shadows of the Shapeless without sounding overly redundant or derivative.

Issued first in Europe by Trust No One, Shadows of the Shapeless finds distribution Stateside via Chicago imprint Seventh Rule Recordings. No strangers to the town, Kongh played the 2008 Kuma’s Doom Fest, which marked their first US appearance. Whether the narrative actually goes that that’s where and when they came to the attention of Seventh Rule (one imagines it was actually before), it’s impressive they’d wind up on the label nonetheless, Seventh Rule in the past having issued albums from Akimbo, Sweet Cobra, Indian and Wetnurse.

The music on Shadows of the Shapeless is bound to inspire all manner of antler-laden hyperbole and metaphor, but what it rounds out to is post-metal crunch with darker and heavier shades that set it apart from the pseudo-cerebral approach that so much of the genre has taken on these last few years. To call it progressive wouldn’t be a mistake, but guitarist/vocalist David Johansson successfully averts the Isis trap and crafts a more natural-feeling soundscape. As the press release suggests, the music is cinematic, but sitting and parsing through its ups and downs, blasts and lulls, feels like a waste of time as compared to experiencing the whole of each of these songs.

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What I’m quickly discovering about his band I’m going to call the “Asteroid process.” It happened with the Swedish group’s self-titled Fuzzorama debut, and the same seems to be holding true for the numerical follow-up, II, as well. It happens like this: you listen to an Asteroid album, and while you’re in it, the music relaxes you to a barely conscious state. You hear the laid back fuzz tones and feel as though you might melt in them. Maybe you do. And when it’s over, you say to yourself, “Golly, that was pretty good,” and you go about your day.

Little do you know, though, that there are riffs and lines that are going to stick with you. That more and more you’re going to find yourself humming different parts of different songs until you feel you have to listen to the album again. And again. And again. Next thing you know, you’re out to lunch with your wife and all you can do is sing the refrain of “Disappear” over and over again, or think about that one riff in “Fire” that seems to sum up all of II in a matter of seconds. Resistance, as they say, is futile.

Asteroid’s infectious style is in full force on their sophomore album, but their growth is also readily apparent. Listening to a song like “Karma,” it feels as though some of the rigidity of the first record, which maybe kept a song like “The Big Trip Beyond” strictly adhered to a verse/chorus methodology, has spread out. “Karma” opens with a softly building jam, and opens up to some of the warmest tones this side of Colour Haze with a riff that soothes as much as it rocks. II seems less focused on structure on the surface, but it isn’t, the manner of execution has simply evolved. The guitars of Robin Hirse have taken the musical fore in a big way, leading most of the jams and often competing for dominance in the mix along Hirse’s own vocals and those of bassist Johannes Nilsson.

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Despite the fun-loving feel of the music — like retro ‘60s pop rock gone warm fuzz with an ear for well-placed solos and grooves — the lyrics and themes of Stockholm five-piece Dexter Jones’ Circus Orchestra’s third album, If Light Can’t Save Us, I Know Darkness Will (Fuzzorama), are almost unremittingly bleak, and that bleakness is mostly self-directed. On opener “If Bars Could Bend,” we’re treated to the line, “I am a great shadow in your life, I bring you down/ I try to make it all good, but my words drown.” On centerpiece and Thin Lizzy-fied album highlight “Little Man,” we get “I need to kill what I’ve become/A dirty fly on golden grain,” and even on the more outward closer “Sad World,” the attitude is still much the same: “We’re sliding down the hole/Somebody save our souls.”

It’s an oppressive attitude that, if you weren’t paying attention to what you were hearing, you might just glance past and miss entirely because the music hardly feels mired in the same way at all. Even a cut like “Mentally Insane,” which shows up later on If Light Can’t Save Us, I Know Darkness Will, and is maybe a little darker sounding musically is nowhere near as dreary in guitar, bass and drums as it is vocally. The dual nature of the release can be looked at one of two ways: it’s either incongruous or really interesting. Maybe it can be a bit of both.

The upbeat country licking in the verses of “Sad World” just don’t match the words, but in a way that makes you wonder why. It’s obvious the band — which now includes Josiah’s Mat Bethancourt in its ranks and worked closely on this album with guitarist Jimmy Ågren — would know that going into the album, so what are they trying to say? Is it supposed to be a sign of hope or a post-modern dance party at the end of the world? Hey, we’re all going over anyway, might as well sing on our way down the falls, right?

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Because I’m an easily distracted moron, while I was making that little list yesterday I forgot one of the albums I’m actually most looking forward to: II by Swedish fuzz rockers Asteroid. As it happens though, the band have checked in with an update via a little site called The Obelisk (wait a second, that’s this site! — yeah, that’s right, we’re breaking news now as well as stealing it) letting everyone know when what might be one of 2010’s best stoner rock releases will be out. Thanks to Asteroid for filling us in. Here’s what they have to say:

Dear listeners!

We are sorry for the delay with the album release. The hold up has a couple of reasons. But the time has now come and the album will be released, January 22nd 2010, thru Fuzzorama Records as usual. The album will be available thru iTunes one week earlier, the 15th of January.

Pre-listen at http://www.myspace.com/asteroidband

Every year there’s a last-minute sneak onto the countdown. Two years ago, Primordial’s To the Nameless Dead came out in November and was my pick for album of the year. I stand by that, by the way. I guess the closest thing to that happening this year is Shrinebuilder, though they more or less had a spot waiting for them, it was just a matter of assigning the proper number when the time came. Last year, there were two late-released records that made my top 10 that I think are worth another mention as we get ready to close the books on 2009.

Namely, Beyond Colossal by Dozer and II by The Kings of Frog Island.

We’ll take them one at a time. For Dozer, who have since relinquished their crown as the kings of Swedish stoner metal to go on hiatus, Beyond Colossal was a further step away from their riff rock beginnings. Their fifth album overall — second for Small Stone — it was a heavy and aggressive exploration of sound that resulted in a collection of memorable tracks including “Empire’s End” and “Two Coins for Eyes,” both of which featured guest vocals from Clutch’s Neil Fallon. But it wasn’t just his appearance that made Beyond Colossal special. The energy in “The Flood,” the dynamism of “The Ventriloquist” and even the bravery of quiet closer “Bound for Greatness” all shine both within the Dozer catalog and without.

For the UK’s The Kings of Frog Island, II was an appropriately-titled second offering via Elektrohasch Schallplatten. While what I recalled of their first album was that it was fuzzy, stoned and riffy with psychedelic undertones, this one came and blew it away in almost every sense of the word. For the hair grown on the guitar tone in “Welcome to the Void” alone — the riff to which I can’t get out of my head just from thinking about it as I type — II has been a mainstay in my CD player throughout 2009. The transposed down-home blues of “The Watcher” and the darker, more sinisterly rhythmic “Witching Hour” are constant fixtures in the mental jukebox, and those are just the tracks I can think of off the top of my head. Once the record actually goes on, it’s simply a matter of being taken someplace else. Leicester, perhaps, where the band is from. Who knows.

Point is this, both Beyond Colossal and II have already shown that they can hold up for a solid year (which, as we all know, is a lot more than plenty of albums) without losing their appeal. If nothing else, that’s definitely worth some consideration. “Attention could be paid,” and so forth.

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I just popped on Different Realities, the latest and fourth full-length from Swedish analog experimentalists Siena Root (on Transubstans, if you’re curious), and not only does it rock a good deal, but the concept of the record is pretty cool as well. There are 10 tracks total, but it’s two pieces of music under the headings “We” and “The Road to Agartha.” “We” is exceptionally well done retro ’70s vibes, guitar rock, intricate and a cool listen. I knew that, I’d heard either a promo of the record or some mp3s a while back, I can’t remember which.

It’s only after I got the physical album itself — do you see, downloaders, what you could be missing? — that the full dichotomy of the release made itself known. From previous listens, I just thought it was an album that started (relatively) straightforward and morphed into a huge India-style jam. Turns out not only is that on purpose, it’s the whole point. About “The Road to Agartha,” the band writes:

“The Road to Agartha” is a musical piece in the form of a raagmala. The raags, being the melodic framework of Hundustani classical music, are here presented together with both sha’abi and baladi rythms (sic) from Northern Africa. Also, the classic rock setting is in dialogue with traditional and medieval instruments from the very same places where people throughout history have been looking for entrances to Agartha. This is not only a meeting of cultures, but also a journey through time and space.

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Fans of Swedish rockers Mammoth Volume were invariably disappointed when the band broke up. I know I was. But drummer/vocalist Nicklas Andersson is back with a new trio called Electric Cavemen who have some demo tracks posted now on their MySpace.

Some of them are pretty rough — “Please My Mind” in particular — but the addition of new bassist Richard Maisa to the lineup along with Nicklas and guitarist/vocalist Bonny Koskela Andersson seems to have shifted the direction of the material from the straightforward stoner-type into something a little meatier. The track “Burning Cross” (a title which one assumes carries less racially-charged baggage for Swedes than for Americans) melds Helmet-style start-stop riffing with a Queens of the Stone Age multi-vocal chorus, and sounds completely natural doing so.

If this is the direction they’re going in with their 10 track demo, which they say is available for free on their website but I couldn’t access to confirm, then there’s plenty to look forward to from Electric Cavemen. In the meantime, “Burning Cross” and the more rockin’ “Hard Blues for You,” not to mention the pedigree, make them easily worth keeping on the radar.

I�m a big fan of words that mean other things when you say them. For example, how �experimental one-man black metal� means �self-indulgent.� In the case of Bergraven, an experimental one-man black metal outfit from Sweden, whose third full-length comes via Hydra Head, it certainly rings true. Till Makabert V�sen (which according to the big truck in the computer translates to To the Macabre Essence) has a many tempo switches, jazzy interludes, heavy/soft transitions, and yes, even some black metal. It�s not necessarily enough to make me care, but there�s a whole league of people out there who eat this kind of thing up. So be it.

If Bergraven — P�r Gustafsson on vocals, bass and guitar joined on Till Makabert V�sen by studio drummer Perra Karlsson — does anything, it�s create a mood. The album is unremittingly dark and progressive, coming across like a textbook on inaccessibility. A track like �Asketens Enda Prydnad� might be a highlight, with Gustafsson�s tortured growls over complex bass runs and sporadic guitar accents leading into heavier, Enslaved-style passages, but a lot of the material surrounding comes on in a wash, so it�s difficult to even appreciate the success of Bergraven�s execution. Goes without saying this is on purpose. There�s to be no celebration here.

Fine. I don�t think it�s out of line to call Bergraven hipster black metal. If nothing else, the Hydra Head connection ingratiates the band to an alternately elitist would-be intellectualism that has persisted in the heavy underground over the course of this past decade. And while I think Drudkh pulls off many of the same turns as Gustafsson with an even more accomplished cohesiveness, there�s no argument that, for what it is, Till Makabert V�sen is bound to please (or not, depending on their level of tr00ness) fans of the style. You don�t need a review to tell you that.

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Thinking about it, I’d have probably picked Nuclear Blast for Swedish power doom trio Grand Magus as far as new labels go, but according to Blabbermouth, it’s Roadrunner all the way. “For the win,” as they say on the intertubes. And with a marketing and distribution network behind them like that of the metal powerhouse, who knows what’s to come for Grand Magus. One hopes for a US tour, at very least. Congrats to the band, and here’s looking forward to the new album. Behold the news:

Roadrunner Records has announced the signing of Swedish heavy rockers Grand Magus.

Grand Magus is a three-piece band featuring �JB� Christofferson (guitar, lead vocals), Fox Skinner (bass, backing vocals) and Sebastian �Seb� Sippola (drums).

During the band’s 10-year history, Grand Magus has released two demos, one split EP and four full-length albums, and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews throughout. Their last opus, Iron Will, was voted “Album of The Month” in the German Metal Hammer and Rock Hard magazines.

Drawing hefty influences from the hand-on-heart grandeur of the NWOBHM and the inspirational mythology of their forbears, Grand Magus is steeped in pre-Christian tales of triumph, vengeance, betrayal, wisdom and death. But Grand Magus also stands for energetic live performances, as seen at this year’s European festivals such as Sweden Rock, Hellfest, Wacken, Summer Breeze and on tour in Europe with bands like At the Gates, Cathedral, Candlemass, Tyrant, Serpentcult and Electric Wizard.

Roadrunner Records will release Grand Magus‘ new album, Hammer of the North, in spring/early summer of 2010. On this CD, Grand Magus has perfected its own style of full-on metal assault with fantastic heavy riffing and stomping songs, strong hook-lines, epic vocals/lyrics and rousing solo guitars.

Commented Grand Magus: “We are thrilled with working with Roadrunner Records. We regard this both as a great sign of recognition and most importantly a chance for us to really push ourselves and the music to the point of perfection. We are confident that the team of us and Roadrunner will be something really special.”

Maybe it’s been mentioned and maybe it hasn’t that an ongoing project of mine is to go back and acquire in physical form many of the records I obtained by digital means while in college. The list is long and mostly forgotten, but it’s a passive thing. If I see one and remember it being good, I’ll grab it. This isn’t a project that keeps me up at night.

Much.

Kaptain Sun’s 2003 full-length, Rainbowride, is one such album. I happened upon it during my last Vintage Vinyl excursion and figured there was no harm in picking it up. Listening through it for the first time the other day, it was basically as I remembered from back when: burly Swedish stoner metal with growly “Hey whoa yeahs” in the vocals and tough-ass riffs and drumming. Songs like “Invisible Dragons,” “Cosmic Magic from the Doomed Planets Below” (which actually explodes before it’s even halfway through, only to come forth and rock anew), “Rainbowride” and “Groove Hotel” came on like testosterone injections and the whole album has a sense of reckless abandon that makes for a fun listen. I mean, just look at that cover art. Who doesn’t want to rock with that?

Rumor (and by “rumor” I mean Kaptain Sun’s MySpace page) has it that as of October 2007, the band is on break due to, “Geographic and priority related reasons.” Whatever that actually means, and whether or not they’re done for good, Rainbowride is a cool find for anyone seeking companionship a little more aggressive than what the usual stoner fare provides. It’s just as hard not to get behind the classic metal guitar solo on “Golden Harvest” as it is not to smile at the silly bopping rhythm of “Freedom.” In any case, it’s a good time, as the clip below for “Invisible Dragons” demonstrates.