When I say it’s hard to classify Detroit experimentalists Giant Brain‘s new album, Thorn of Thrones (Small Stone), understand it is a compliment, because the band’s obvious intention is to be more than one thing at one time. Complexity is a virtue, and if their electronically-influenced stoner/Kraut groove is anything, it is that; drawing on classic ’70s prog as much as heavily distorted modern power riffing (you can hear it on the charmingly and cumbersomely titled “This is Where the Robot Escapes His Evil Captor, Finds Raygun, Plots Revenge”), their sound could put off a lot of heads who either can’t get past the inorganic sound of programmed beats (there are natural drums as well) or who are just unwilling to dig through the band’s sonic puzzle and identify the familiarities beneath, but if we all didn’t have to work once in a while, boundaries would never get pushed.

The mostly instrumental outfit could easily be put off as a vanity project from Al Sutton, producer for the likes of avant-mathematicians Don Caballero and Small Stone mainstays Five Horse Johnson, but together with his brother Andy (who handles the programming and bass), former Big Chief guitarist Phil D?rr and drummer, etc., Eric Hoegemeyer (Deep See Sound System), Sutton taps into a level of versatility that goes beyond mere showing off. The Porcupine Tree-esque acoustic/electric interplay of “Empyrian” — think In Absentia-era — and the straightforward driving riff that propels the eight-minute-long “Gooser” gives the impression that rather than jam out parts and see what happens, Giant Brain pieces begin with specific sound ideas and are fleshed out from there. Little wonder Andy is also listed as responsible for “concepts.”

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Were I a better reviewer-type person, I’d drudge my ass out tomorrow night to go see Dead Man at the Cake Shop in Manhattan. So far as I know it’s the first US trip for the Swedish psych-folkies, and who knows if there will ever be another? They put out that Euphoria record through MeteorCity last year, and that was pretty cool. Not landmark or anything, but alright. I’d be happy to watch those guys dork it up for an hour or so.

Why not go? Because the Cake Shop, a venue located in the basement of — wait for it — a cake shop, is ground zero for hipster douchebaggery. And I’m not just talking Buddy Holly glasses and tight pants. I mean the worst of the worst; people who don’t grow ironic moustaches because they think that not growing them is even more ironic than growing them! People posing as impoverished because they think the poor are “so authentic” while their parents out on Long Island pay their $1,500 monthly Williamsburg rent! Graphic designers!

Dead Man are slated to go on at 11:00PM, which means they probably won’t take the stage until well after midnight, because only assholes do things on time and since we’re all post-grads with shitty beards it’s not like we actually have anywhere to be in the morning, right? I just don’t have it in me to stand there, most likely by myself, holding an eight dollar beer and wondering when all these American Apparel pseudo-bohemians are going to go back for their M.B.A. and leave their fashion fascism behind for the comfort of the whitebread suburbs from whence they came. I’m sorry. I know I’ll really wish I went — in fact, what I really wish was that I had gone when they played Philly (which is like New York except the people are actually people and not cardboard advertisements for people) on Feb. 6. I was a fool.

So, I’m sorry. I know if you’re out there reading this, you’re going to be heartbroken at the lack of a Dead Man live review, but I just can’t do it. If Dead Man wants to come play in the pastoral Rockaway River Valley — a setting far better fitting their sound — they’re more than welcome anytime. I can’t promise anyone but me and the sleepy dog will be there, but that’s got to be better than playing for the kinds of assholes that are going to show up at the Cake Shop tomorrow night.

What you’ve got to appreciate about monumental UK doomers My Dying Bride — who along with Paradise Lost and Anathema constituted the “Peaceville Three” and helped lay the melancholic groundwork for the European doom movement at large — is that 1990 was a very, very long time ago. 19 years, in fact. Children have been born and graduated high school in that time. And as the two remaining founders, vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe and guitarist Andrew Craighan alone represent a great team, yes, but also one of the most important songwriting duos in metal history.

For Lies I Sire (Peaceville Records) is My Dying Bride‘s tenth full-length, and though “Echoes from a Hollow Soul” may carry that definitive MDB sadness, it’s hardly business as usual across the board. Rejuvenating Stainthorpe, Craighan and longtime guitarist Hamish Glencross are three new, younger players for whom this is their first studio output with the band; bassist Lena Ab?, drummer Dan “Storm” Mullins and keyboardist Katie Stone, who brings with her a violin that has been much missed since MDB‘s earliest days.

That alone would make it easy for this to become a novelty album, but as ever, My Dying Bride play it classy and don’t overdo it, making the instrument more of an accoutrement than a focal point.

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Dozer are one of the best stoner rock bands in the world. And I’m not just saying that. It’s science. Go back and look at albums like 2000’s In the Tail of a Comet and 2001’s Madre de Dios and you’ll still only get a cursory understanding of the greatness of these Swedes and the impact they’ve had on their country’s ever-stronger scene. Their songwriting ability, riffs and pure rock fury hold their own against any name you want to put to them, including American acts like Nebula, Fu Manchu, Clutch or even Kyuss.

With their latest album, Beyond Colossal (Small Stone Recordings), Dozer have crafted not only an immense, powerful stoner rock album, but a striking statement of European metal in general. It is stunning how much of a stoner record it isn’t; they’ve clearly come a long way from their days putting out splits with Demon Cleaner — whose Karl Daniel Lid?n not only drummed for Dozer, but in Greenleaf with Dozer guitarist Tommi Holoppa up to 2007’s Agents of Ahriman, and engineers here — and guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Nordin sounds as furious and confident as ever, his voice reaching for and hitting notes that would have been a dream even on 2002’s Call it Conspiracy

Boasting two guest appearances from Clutch‘s Neil Fallon — on “Empire’s End” and the ground-shaking “Two Coins for Eyes” — Beyond Colossal is the fulfillment of the promise 2005’s excellent Through the Eyes of Heathens began to see through. The sound is that of the band pushing itself harder, writing stronger songs and compromising none of their edge or aural passion. You can hear it on “Exoskeleton (Part II),” truncated here from its appearance with “Part I” on a 2007 split with Iceland‘s Brain Police, at the 1:39-mark launching of “The Ventriloquist,” on the more traditionally stoner “Grand Inquisitor” and even the quiet “Bound for Greatness” which closes out the album. Dozer are not only on top of their game, they’re well beyond it.

Submitted for your approval following the jump is a spirited, smiley-laden email interview with Mr. Holoppa, who fills The Obelisk in on Dozer‘s process, the reaction to the new album, the possibility of a US tour and even when we might see a new Greenleaf record.

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Tide yourself over to the end of the week with some live Fu Manchu. After taking on the solemn duty of checking out near every Fu video on YouTube, I decided this clip of “Evil Eye” from 1997’s The Action is Go kicked more than sufficient ass. The video itself seems newer than ’97 (can’t tell if that’s Brant Bjork back there or not, but I think not), but it rules anyway. Filmed live at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC. Things are looking pretty doomy around here as far as the next couple days’ worth of reviews go, so I thought this might brighten the mood a bit. I swear every time I see Scott Hill he’s wearing horizontal stripes…

When first I laid eyes on The Wizar’d‘s Follow the Wizard EP on the “New in Stock” shelf at Vintage Vinyl down the Parkway, I knew immediately it was a doom record and I knew immediately it was one I needed to own. I bought it solely based on the name, knowing nothing about the Tasmanian band or their sound. Nearly three years later, I have no regrets, especially now that I’ve gotten ahold of a copy of the follow-up full-length (there were a 7″, a live record and another EP in between), Infernal Wizardry (Rusty Axe Records).

Next time you?re sitting around, caking on your mother?s cold cream and PhotoShopping yourself into stock photos of blackened forests, just remember that no matter who you are, The Wizar?d is more underground, more cult and truer than you?ll ever be. Fronted by guitarist/vocalist Ol? Rusty Vintage Wizard Master, these practitioners of the dark riff are emasculatingly heavy, playing raw, Sabbathian purple and black tape-hiss doom and offering no solace or escape in either sound quality or pace. Shades of early Penance creep into some of the guitars, but Infernal Wizardry is excruciatingly slow and paralyzingly grim.

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Heavily-percussed — their two drummers might have something to do with that — Savannah, Georgia five-piece Kylesa will release Static Tensions, their fourth album (third for Prosthetic Records) on March 17. It’s an album that sees the avant sludge metallurgists concocting yet another highly individualized piece of post-metal, thicker and seemingly more focused on songcraft than 2006’s Time Will Fuse its Worth with heavy atmospherics built from aggressive riffs and savage performances.

As ever, with Kylesa, it’s a tale of sonic conflict. On Static Tensions, we hear guitarist/vocalist/producer Phillip Cope versus guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants, Cope and Pleasants then teaming up to take on drummer Carl McGinley and drummer Eric Hernandez, McGinley and Hernandez then turning on each other, the songs doing battle with themselves (and our eardrums) and the unavoidable maturation process and willful progression engaged mano a mano with the desire to bludgeon listeners over the head with heaviness. How bassist Javier Villegas manages to cope with it all is a mystery. Perhaps a lot of rocking out and the occasional bit of recreational drug use. Pure speculation.

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Click on the album cover above to bask in the Sabbath-y goodness of “Resurrection Sickness,” the rocking opener from Valis‘ upcoming album, Dark Matter! The fourth album from the Seattle band, Dark Matter was produced and engineered by Jack Endino (Nebula, High on Fire, etc.), is available now on iTunes and will enter the physical realm — i.e. CD stores — April 14, 2009, thanks to Small Stone Records. Enjoy the track and keep your eyes open for the review and interview to come!