Like their two preceding shared releases — 1998’s Demon Cleaner vs. Dozer (discussed here) and 1999’s follow-up Hawaiian Cottage (discussed here) — the split 7″ Domestic Dudes was released through Molten Universe, the label helmed by Dozer guitarist Tommi Holappa. And because it’s the last of the three, it’s easy enough to think of these four songs and 13 minutes as a springboard that sent both of these outfits toward releasing their debut full-lengths in 2000 — that’s Dozer‘s In the Tail of a Comet (featured here, discussed here) and Demon Cleaner‘s The Freeflight (discussed here); note that Lowrider also had their first album and Greenleaf, who pulled members and guests from all three bands, had their first EP in 2000; good living in Sweden at the turn of the century (also now) — and sure enough, there are easy-enough-in-hindsight arguments to be made that that’s what’s happening.

I’m not sure there’s actually such a thing as being ‘ready’ to make an album, since plenty of great ones have been put out by people who obviously weren’t ‘ready’ in any convential sense for what would result. It’s a cliché that rock critics throw out there — myself included (at least in the cliché part; I’m not sure I count as a critic anymore) — as a way of saying, “I think this band could make a record I’d think is cool,” and since it’s generally intended as a compliment and is kind of milquetoast, nobody really blinks. Fine.

By the same token, to listen to Demon Cleaner‘s “Taurus” and “45” and Dozer‘s “Octanoid” and “Hail the Dude,” even in comparison to the work they were doing just a year earlier in 1999, I think you can hear a progression of sound and purpose that helped solidify their respective identities going into their 2000 LPs. Neither of these Demon Cleaner tracks would show up on The Freeflight or the band’s subsequent 2002 self-titled swansong, but they’re for sure on the trajectory of where that album was coming from, loosely grooving and plenty brash in the buzz of “45,” taking the desert roll of “Taurus” and the little bit of a jam they throw into the solo section and paring it back to the most essential components, then setting it to run.

Kyuss still very much is a defining influence — for both bands at this stage, really — but by the end of “45,” Demon Cleaner gave a picture of where they were headed, and given the limitations of the 7″ format they were working in for what was either intended as a series from the start or just became one as they went on, the fact that they manage to give a dynamic expression of their sound in just six minutes and two well-paired tracks speaks to how generally underrated Demon Cleaner‘s work is to begin with. That whole stopped-after-the-second-record thing probably has something to do with that. Bottom line though, Demon Cleaner were onto something here, and though they wouldn’t be a band anymore by the time five years passed after Domestic Dudes came out, they did manage to realize at least some of the potential they showed in these three nascent splits.

“Octanoid,” with its standout pottymouth chorus and the emergent distinctive throaty swagger of guitarist Fredrik Nordin, will be recognizable from Dozer‘s second album, 2001’s Madre de Dios (featured here), and I don’t know that “Hail the Dude” is or isn’t about The Big Lebowski, but it’s possible, as that film was also released in 1999. In any case, with a howl of guitar after the drum count-in and a steady stoner-rock-when-it-was-stoner-rock-now-we-call-it-classic janga-janga in the verse, “Hail the Dude” is exactly the kind ‘lost’ track that has for years been begging to show up on a compilation release of some sort, but I’ve harped on that enough these last couple weeks, and the songs themselves make the argument better than I could anyhow.

I’d be curious to know if Dozer and Demon Cleaner — and you’ll notice that they’ve switched back to Demon Cleaner vs. Dozer on the cover art; for Hawaiian Cottage, Dozer had top billing — went into Domestic Dudes knowing it was the last of three, or if there was no plan to start with, or what, because there’s such a palpable sense in listening to it of both acts being all in. On the first split, they’re beginning to get a sense of who they are, but by the third, Demon Cleaner have a firm grip on their intent in “Taurus” and “45,” and while Dozer would move past the desert-fuzzed style after their second record and find a more individualized take, at times aggressive, at times spacious, and still evolving these many years later, their 2023 comeback, Drifting in the Endless Void (review here), boasting a richer sprawl after a 15-year studio absence.

But you knew that, so right on. I know these guys are plenty busy. As previously noted, Demon Cleaner‘s drummer was Karl Daniel Lidén, who not only would go on to play in Dozer and Greenleaf, but would record those bands as well as countless others, his work as producer having no less of an impact on the shape of Swedish heavy across a generation than his contributions as a musician. He continues to produce and/or mix killer records — had a hand in High Desert Queen‘s album last year, which ruled — and this clique of players, from Dozer to Greenleaf, Demon Cleaner, Lowrider, probably a couple others from around then, still exists in terms of collaborating with each other and the friendships that these three platters helped solidify.

And it would just be the bloggiest thing ever for me to tell you that those friendships are what’s most important, that it’s the sense of community and support in the heavy underground that makes it so special in a world that’s come to be defined largely by its cruelties and isolation. All true. But while I’m glad at least some of the relationships here continue on to this day, because it’s nice to have friends or so I’m told, that has little to do with the actual listening experience. As far as a takeaway from the third of the trilogy: understand that Domestic Dudes isn’t really the finish, but barely the beginning of what either of these acts would accomplish. They’re still young, hungry, and yes, both bands also sound ready on whatever level one might think of to take the next step. Obviously they were about to do exactly that.

As always, I hope you enjoy, and I hope you’ve enjoyed all three of these over the last couple weeks. I’ve wanted to write about these forever and it was a lot of fun to dig in. Maybe some day they’ll make a fourth. You never know.

—

Rough week. I’ll be honest, my head’s been elsewhere pretty much since Wednesday. The Pecan’s having trouble at school. She went after a para at lunch who pulled her away from getting into it with another kid, and we had to go pick her up yesterday early. It sucked. The Patient Mrs. and I were an hour away when we got the call, trying to chase down a check so she can buy a car that ended up taking us to a credit union on the campus of (wait for it) West Point, which was surreal even before you get to the gummy I’d eaten. But yeah, that was a long-ass, quiet drive back from West Point to the school. Gut-wrenching.

You feel terrible for the kid. It’s not like she doesn’t know what she’s doing is wrong, she just can’t stop it. She gets overwhelmed and lashes out. The para touched her. I’m sure the kid was doing some goofy shit or calling her names or whatever — there’s a whole set of boys in her class she’s having trouble with the last few weeks and it’s turned her world to shit — but she apparently went after him and then the para and there you go. That was a shitty pickup to live through.

We kept her home today. She’s in the bedroom watching Mark Rober — a new obsession, at least a decent portion of it is science — and will likely be there until hunger makes it untenable. The Patient Mrs. is home today too and the sun looks like it’s daring to come out, so leaving the house might happen at some point. That would probably be advisable, anyhow.

But the kid had a great weekend last weekend, including Monday off, which we spent all day at the arcade at the mall. We even played Super Smash Bros. for N64, which felt like a parenting achievement I didn’t know I’d been waiting for for years, and she got into it deep on some skeeball like the Jersey girl she is, and had a ton of fun. We saw family and family friends and she’d had a decent day last Friday enough that we didn’t get a call and so I thought going into Tuesday maybe upping her meds had helped. Not so much.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were each a wreck and so here we are Friday.

This isn’t our first time in this position as parents. Honestly, after the rough start to kindergarten last year, which was a fucking trauma, I was hoping we were done. Now I’m wondering if this is how it’s going to be and if so, if that’s where we are, how we’re going to move forward. Not only getting her back in school as soon as possible, where she belongs by any measure, but what can be put in place so that the escalation of the last couple weeks stops before somebody gets hurt.

It’s fucking difficult. It’s been a difficult week, and absolutely, I’ve been distracted from what’s going on around here. There’s been a lot of cool shit though, it was a good week. I’m doing my best to keep my head in it, and as usual The Obelisk is a bit of therapy for my brain, even if I’ve come to spend more time complaining about the back-end work of running the site than I used to.

Next week is a Quarterly Review. I’ll start working on it tomorrow. It’s seven days, and then after that I’m going to Roadburn and then I’m taking like a day off after that and that’s basically April. I’ve got premieres set up through the end of the month after the QR and fest coverage, and then we’re into May. It’ll be 2028 before I know it. Shit, she’ll be in fourth grade. That’s almost middle school.

Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, watch your head, try and have some fun. Things are hard. Take your moments where and when you can, and if you need to breathe, breathe. Thanks as always for reading.

FRM.

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I never had to make my own playlist for one of these posts before, but the second of three Dozer and Demon Cleaner demo-type split 7″s, 1998’s Hawaiian Cottage, wasn’t immediately available all together, and the Demon Cleaner tracks included above — “Heading Home” and “Megawheel” — are taken from the Swedish band’s debut album, The Freeflight (discussed here), as my admittedly limited chase-down skills couldn’t find the single’s recordings streaming anywhere. I own this one — not bragging; it was a valued gift from an even more valued friend – but don’t have a way to transfer. If I hear one complaint about it in the comments, I’ll be surprised, but I felt compelled to mention it just the same.

So, we pick up where we left off last time with the Demon Cleaner vs. Dozer split (discussed here), to which Hawaiian Cottage made a quick-turnaround follow-up, releasing the same year. And like both of Demon Cleaner‘s tracks, which I was happy to find at all, some of what Dozer included here wound up on their own Y2K-issued first album, In the Tail of a Comet (featured here, discussed here), namely the ultra-recognizable, ultra-catchy “Riding the Machine.”

Dozer take top billing this time, so that on the cover it’s Dozer vs. Demon Cleaner — whatever rivalry aspect there may have been between these two bands at the time, they were already friends and collaborators; the ‘vs.’ no doubt comes from the epic battles they all undertook as teenagers playing Street Fighter II. At least that’s the narrative I’ve given it. On Hawaiian Cottage, already one can hear how much the two outfits were growing together, each feeling their way through their desert rock influences while setting themselves on the path to being the bands they’d become during their respective times together, Dozer‘s obviously ongoing. I’m reasonably sure both bands at this point where recording with Bengt Bäcke, who also served as the longtime bassist of affiliated outfit Greenleaf, so how much they’re on the same page here shouldn’t really be a shock.

And an early take on “Riding the Machine,” which would not only feature on Dozer‘s LP but was a highlight of it, is nothing to sneeze at here. Its sound is rawer obviously than the ‘finished’ one, and it comes accompanied by “Silverball,” which didn’t make the record but actually does a lot of work in conveying the intensity that would emerge over time in Dozer‘s sound. As much as their later work, whether it’s 2023’s Drifting in the Endless Void (review here) or 2008’s Beyond Colossal (featured here, discussed here, 2009 interview here), took on a dynamic, atmospheric and immersive sound, the thrust so plainly audible in “Silverball” very much remains a part of what Dozer do. It’s just the fuzzed-out baby version of the thing, which also happens to be awesome.

“Heading Home” begins Demon Cleaner‘s B-side, followed by the does-for-Fu–Manchu-what-Dozer-does-for-Kyuss “Megawheel,” the hook of which makes a fitting complement to “Riding the Machine” as they wrap up the split. Starting off with fuzzy, languid wah, it is pure turn-of-the-century stoner rock bliss, cool in the vocal delivery with a bit of shaker in the groove, then the surge of distortion with the vocals cutting through as they hit into the chorus. Smooth, well executed, bare-bones structurally, but it should be. It’s a demo made by 20 year olds who just happened to have a label — Dozer guitarist Tommi Holappa‘s Molten Universe, which also put out The Freeflight — and the capacity to press it up well in advance of the vinyl revival kicking off in earnest.

The repeated lines, “I am slowing down/I am heading home’ in the push of the second half of “Heading Home” give over to a somewhat understated lead and a tempo kick as they decide to tear into it at the end, and “Megawheel” rolls out (get it?) on suitably farty low end and righteous buzz. No disrespect to Dozer, who show up big to be sure, but if it’s a contest of which hook is going to be stuck in your head all day, “Megawheel” is a tough one to get away from.

It is declarative in its stomp but doesn’t stay put as it jumps into the first bridge and stops with a couple hits of cowbell to work back in. The fuzz is warm and there’s plenty for everybody, and where there are times over the course of their two LPs — the second of which was self-titled and issued in 2002; it hasn’t closed a week yet in this fashion but will at some point I’m sure; I keep a list — where they get caught up in the charge and end up more punkish than, say, their side A counterparts on this outing, even when “Megawheel” hits the gas, the sense of control remains firm as they bring it to a head at the finish, a drop-mic moment at the end predating mic drops when it comes down to silence.

There’s a temptation to write a lot into these releases as regards importance-to-genre, and certainly Dozer and Demon Cleaner‘s work warrants that kind of consideration despite the discrepancies between their respective discographies. But the truth of listening, whether you’re putting on your platter that you’ve had since before The Matrix came out and somewhat hilariously codified the 1990s as the peak of civilization, streaming the tracks above or engaging in a little light piracy 27 years after the fact while you wait for the Dozer early-works comp I’ve campaigned for for so long to surface, is so much simpler. It’s not about what Dozer would do over the next decade, or about Demon Cleaner launching the production career of Karl Daniel Lidén, whose work helped directly shape what those of us geographically elsewhere think of as ‘Swedish heavy rock.’ You get that in its quintessential form on this split and its compatriot releases.

But more, it’s about the fact that the bands just went for it. They got in the studio, played the songs, put them out. It’s the joy of creating a thing, of being part of a group creating a thing, of celebrating the sounds you love with your friends. Playing in the truest sense. You can hear all of that on Hawaian Cottage too, and so it seems all the more to capture a special moment in the lifespans of these two acts.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy.

—

We’ll wrap this informal mini-series next week with 1999’s Domestic Dudes as third of the three. After that, if there’s anyone’s catalog you want to see written up — I did Sabbath at one point last year or the year before, if you’ll recall — I’m open to suggestion if you’d like to leave a comment with one. Kyuss are obvious. Clutch would keep me busy for the rest of the year probably. But I’ve done a fair number of both their records, so that’s a challenge too — stuff where at least most of it hasn’t been already covered. Cathedral would be an interesting one, or Saint Vitus. Colour Haze are one of my favorite bands ever. Might be fun to dig into Chopping Machine or Seven at the start of their catalog.

I just went to change over the load of wash in the basement — speaking of dudely domesticity — and wound up taking a broom to the years’ worth of spider and cobwebs on the ceiling and the walls and everything around the washer and dryer, so let that serve as an indicator of my level of distraction this week. I slept hard last night but woke up at 3AM yesterday morning, so maybe not such a shock, and in terms of quality-of-life, those kinds of days are markedly lower.

Couple that with The Pecan having a harder time in school this week, hitting kids and teachers and yesterday needing to be taken out of an assembly after chasing around a one-armed man wanting to ask him questions about I know not what but I assume his one arm, and a kind of disastrous playdate yesterday where she melted down each time her friend wanted to hang out with the dog — which her friend definitely did, I think in part because my daughter spent so much time losing it — and I upped her meds before sending her in today.

If it wasn’t already a three-day weekend with Monday off, I’d have probably kept her home in an effort to give her a break. As it is, we’ll try and have a quiet-ish day tomorrow while still getting out to do some physical activity — it’s supposed to be nice, so that’ll help — and see where we’re at Sunday and Monday. She’s having issues giving up control of, well, anything, and we fall into arguments of “that’s not your decision” and “you’re not in charge of that” when she starts issuing commands or barking orders. Someday she’ll make an excellent supreme leader of the Terran Empire. Until then, I’d be pretty fucking happy if I could get her out of grade school without her turning the place to rubble.

So yesterday and today kind of become a wait by the phone, which of course helps nothing whether it’s the ambient anxiety of the house or conveying my own disappointing expectations for how things will go. The school’s behaviorist brought me into the office the other day and we sat, The Pecan too, while they talked about everything that’s been going on. It sucked. And they had some plan with some rule sheet that the kid drew up herself or some such — all the therapeutically-designed current things to do to try to get and keep a child on board with the social contract — but she’s burned through so much of that over the years between Early Intervention, OT, DI, speech at home and out, two-and-a-half years of pre-K and Kindergarten that I’m honestly not hopeful anything other than a kick in her dose will see any even medium-term movement in the direction we want. This too is sad. I don’t like drugging my kid. I can’t afford to send her to a school in the woods with a private tutor to teach her mechanical engineering, long division and/or quantum mechanics. If I could, I would. I just want her to be okay and don’t know what to do to help that happen.

In this, as in so many other ways, parenting sucks. She’s got therapy on Monday, which we started for paperwork purposes — insurance stuff, it’s complicated and political so I’m not going to talk about it — and now seems like maybe it’s a good idea to continue.

Am I really gonna leave off on that note? We were doing so well talking about Dozer and Demon Cleaner and here I am with the bumout before I send you packing back to whatever you got distaracted from to read this (hopefully nothing important)?

That’s real life, folks. Sometimes the things that are supposed to make you feel the best make you feel the worst. If that’s harshing a mellow, at least it’s honest. You move on regardless. Another week will come, hopefully better rested and less discouraging. If not, well, Roadburn’s in about two and a half weeks, so a couple days out of my own head are on the horizon, and surely that’s a better place to be as regards the self-talk underlying it all, which grows crueler with the passing of each nervous day.

But if you want something to look forward to, the Lo-Pan album is out next week. I’ll be reviewing that for Monday, I hope. I’ve also got premieres for The Elven, which has Isaiah Mitchell from Earthless involved, as well as Temple Fang and The Summit Fever. So that’s at least two of the best LPs I’ve heard so far in 2025 being written up. Things can’t be that horrible when the music is so good.

Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to hydrate.

FRM.

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Hell yeah. This 1998 four-song split 7″ was the first of three that Demon Cleaner and Dozer would release together through Dozer guitarist Tommi Holappa‘s Molten Universe imprint — it bears the catalog number MOLTEN 001 — and was pressed in two editions of 500 copies total. It exists largely in the digital sphere, despite not being ‘officially’ streaming anywhere I could find, through file-trading and YouTube streams like the above (it’s called ‘Bootleg Theater’ for a reason), and although I’ve campaigned actively for over a decade for Dozer to release an early-works compilation with this material and, say, their demos and the cuts from the 1999 split with Unida (discussed here), maybe some other odds and ends if you want to make it a 2LP or 2CD, my pleas have thus far gone unheard as they mark their 30th anniversary in 2025. Release the tapes! Release the tapes!, and so on.

And certainly the archival impulse is part of what such a compilation would satisfy, but it captures something pivotal for both Demon Cleaner — which featured Karl Daniel Lidén on drums, who’d also go on to play in both Dozer and their sister band Greenleaf, as well as to produce and/or mix those bands and countless others, among them Katatonia and Crippled Black Phoenix, at his Tri-Lamb Studios — and Dozer, who were still a crucial two years from making their full-length debut with 2000’s In the Tail of a Comet (featured here, discussed here).

Maybe it was reviewing that Caboose record the other day that put me in a sentimental mode, but thinking about these bands at this time — I’d put Lowrider in this mix too with Dozer and Demon Cleaner; all part of the family tree of folks who probably/definitely showed up on a Greenleaf record at some point — and listening to Demon Cleaner revel in the fuzz and shove of “Barracuda,” the pure Kyussian blast of its early going and the way they cram both so much fuzz and so much space into a song that still leaves room for a companion piece on its side, the energy of their playing is infectious. The subsequent “Redlight,” which unlike “Barracuda” would not resurface on Demon Cleaner‘s own 2000 debut, The Freeflight (discussed here), is shorter and has a more straight-ahead drive, but there too, I’ve got the same nostalgic feeling.

Understand, it’s not like I was there in 1998. I didn’t review Demon Cleaner vs. Dozer or its two follow-ups, ’98’s Hawaiian Cottage (MOLTEN 002) and 1999’s Domestic Dudes (MOLTEN 003) for my high school newspaper. I was never that cool. But it wasn’t too many years later that I did get on board, and the same energy and that passion one specifically feels for something new — whether it’s a new sound that’s hitting you hard, like this, or a romance — that I felt when I was first discovering heavy, desert and stoner rock, you can also hear in how both Demon Cleaner and Dozer‘s arguments (or sides, if you prefer) play out.

If Demon Cleaner vs. Dozer takes you back to when you first heard fuzz riffs set to heavy groove, a rock that could be weighted in sound or emotion without having to rely either on the attitude-performance of punk or the caricature chestbeating of metal — though Sweden’s produced a lot of quality in both genres, of course — I think that’s okay, because it’s doing the same thing for the bands. Dozer enter into “Tanglefoot” like they Kramer-crashed into the studio and dropped all their fuzz on the floor (it was the ’90s, so a Seinfeld reference is timely). Following up on the boogie of Demon Cleaner‘s “Redlight,” “Tanglefoot” has a shuffle, but Dozer‘s earliest work is characterized by its unadulterated worship of Californian desert rock — something to which guitarist Fredrik Nordin‘s vocals brought a distinctive twist at the relative beginnings of a generational turnover that would change and help shape the European underground as it stands today.

But to the point, they sound like kids, and they sound like kids having fun, and I hear that a lot differently now than I might’ve two decades ago, when it and I were both a lot newer. These early songs, both Demon Cleaner and Dozer, still evoke a sense of freedom in my mind, a feeling of saying screw it and diving in, because that’s kind of what both bands are doing. Yeah, the internet existed in 1998 and I’m pretty sure these bands were on it in some fashion, but it wasn’t like today, where there’s an established heavy underground infrastructure in touring and releasing. Topped off with cover art that looks like it was specifically made to get Frank Kozik‘s attention — apparently it worked, since Man’s Ruin Records released Dozer‘s aforementioned first LP — there is no question it’s of its era.

That’s what’s so much worth preserving too, however. Yeah, Dozer hit into “Centerline” like their lives absolutely depend on it while still drawing a direct line to the mellower Kyuss tune from which Demon Cleaner took their name, and yeah, “Redlight” is sub-three minutes of ultra-rad turn-of-the-century era heavy, all-in, all-burn, all-killer as their two still-undervalued LPs would go on to be. Of course that vitality — what youth can inimitably bring to a recording and performance — is a factor. A big one. But so too is how raw this material is, and how much it reminds us that at some point, somebody had to just do the thing for it to be done. I’m sure neither Demon Cleaner nor Dozer went into teaming up for splits saying, “We’re doing this for desert rock!” in no small part because the genre didn’t exist yet, but no doubt they both had a hand in bringing it to life.

I will continue to argue for a Dozer early-works compilation until probably well after one actually gets released (because sometimes these things happen and I forget to stop being annoyed they haven’t happened yet), but I’m not holding my breath. Demon Cleaner could continuously stand more ears on their work, and meanwhile Dozer are still here and there supporting 2023’s landmark return, Drifting in the Endless Void (review here). If the two bands wanted to make a fourth split together today, I’m pretty sure it could happen.

As always, I hope you enjoy. It’s another short one, but plenty to say about it. Thanks for reading, in any case.

—

To answer the first question you didn’t ask, yeah, I do think I’m going to do the two 1999 Demon Cleaner/Dozer split 7″s over the next two weeks. Why not make a series of it? Should be an interesting challenge by the third one for sure. “Well, like six months after the release of the second split, turns out the third one is also really fuzzy.” That’ll be fun. Eventually you run out of synonyms for ‘rad.’

I don’t remember what was going on last week and I don’t have the capacity to go look. Last weekend The Pecan had a bunch of stuff on. Playdate Saturday was fine, birthday party Sunday was fine. This weekend I don’t know what’s up other than The Patient Mrs.’ mother is coming down from CT to stay over tonight. Between that, a sore ankle I twisted last week and general aversion to city driving, thus am I missing Slomosa in Brooklyn tonight. So it goes. But by tomorrow afternoon, I have no idea. Whatever. A day will happen. Another will follow.

That’s good news, theoretically.

This week was The Patient Mrs.’ spring break — woo. — and we’ve still managed not to hang out all that much. She went to work on Tuesday, yesterday got her hair done, today is out again, and I’m here writing. We’ve sat next to each other on our laptops, which was nice, and managed to get to Costco — our spot, these days — and buy some seltzer. It’s not like if we hung out all week I’d be like, “Oh, well that was certainly enough.” It’s never really gonna be enough and I know that. But I guess that’s kind of what life is right now.

She’s back to work next week. Things are full around here too. Monday is a Serial Hawk review. Yup, they’re back at it. Record’s a bruiser. Tuesday a premiere for Håndgemeng, Wednesday one for Komatsu, Thursday an album stream for Smoke Mountain, and I think next Friday is a video premiere for Space Queen, which I just kinda confirmed this morning. I’m gonna give myself some slack on news posts, which are interminable, in favor of quality over quantity. I only have so many hours and so much brainpower. I feel a bit like I’ve written the same fest announcement post 60 times. Because I have.

I know, complaining that a lot of cool shit is happening is stupid and lame. I wish I went to Brant Bjork last night. I wish I was going to Slomosa tonight. Logistics. Roadburn is in a month. I’ll look forward to that.

Thanks again for reading. Have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head out there among these fucking psychopaths. Hydrate with real water. Don’t believe what they tell you about the Brawndo.

Oh, and did you see the new merch? It exists! I updated the sidebar of this site to prove it! Thanks if you check that out too.

FRM.

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There are about five different angles of approach I’ve come up with that I could take in discussing Vaka‘s 2009 full-length debut and lone-to-date offering, Kappa Delta Phi (review here). Here they are:

1. I could start by telling you about the career trajectory that led Karl Daniel Lidén to form the studio project, solo-based but expanded into complete-band arrangements filled out by players recruited for bass, guitar, vocals, even some cello tucked into expansively marching, gloriously Mellotronned closer “For Redemption.” Already by 2009, Lidén had been a member of Demon Cleaner, Greenleaf and Dozer. He’d founded Tri-Lamb Studios, where he’d not only record his own drums, piano, Mellotron and other keys, synth and probably a little bit of whatever was around for the Vaka material he composed, but would go on to helm albums for Katatonia, Greenleaf, Switchblade, Propane Propane, Bloodbath, Crippled Black Phoenix and a slew of others. He’s been an essential part of the course of Swedish heavy music over the last 20-plus years and Kappa Delta Phi remains the project of his own that, to-date, he has most spearheaded as a musician, songwriter, and producer. It’s a fun story, and a multifaceted enough record to stand up to the winding course which brought Lidén to it circa 2008-2009.

2. I could talk about the songs themselves, which are varied as one might expect for an album that features upwards of 10 different players contributing to its 10 component pieces and built on mostly post-metallic foundations given distinction through heavy use of piano — it starts on the intro “The Ship” and piano and keys are prominent throughout; a common element skillfully tying otherwise disparate ideas together; it’s very much a producer’s record — and marked by the shifts in atmosphere from the call-and-response barks and Neurosis-style churn of the nine-minute “Born to Secrecy” to the rumbling, lumbering payoff of the writhing “Stalemates” near the finish, to the midsection, might’ve-been-the-side-B-intro-to-a-vinyl-release interlude “Glacialis” and the various drones abounding blending the grounded and ethereal, severity and float. What might’ve been a messy process (let alone mix) working remotely before doing so became commonplace resulting in crushing, purposeful, and thrillingly volatile songs. There’s a lot going on here and a lot to talk about. This also would be fun.

3. I could tell you that when the Bandcamp broken heart thing came up because I’d streamed the album so many times revisiting it over the last couple weeks, I bought it (I have the CD from when it was released on Murkhouse Recordings in ’09 as well), and downloaded the wav files instead of mp3s because I wanted to hear it as full and uncompressed as possible.

4. I could run down that aforementioned significant number of artists involved in making the record, from vocalist Manne Ikonen (also ex-Zerocharisma) and guitarist Wille Naukkarinen (also ex-Sunride, he runs St-st-studio as well), both of Finland’s Ghost Brigade, contributing to “Born to Secrecy,” Ikonen trading lines with Misha Sedini of Come Sleep and Lingua, among others, to cellist Christoffer Ohlsson (Blue Foundation) adding to the breadth of “For Redemption,” where Melloboat Festival founder Stefan Dimle (also Landberk) handles bass. Ikonen and Naukkarinen, the Finnish contingent, both take part in the linear build across “At the Hands of Loss,” and also on bass are Johan Rockner, known for his work in Dozer and Greenleaf and up until 2023 also in Besvärjelsen, and Peder Bergstrand, who in 2008 released the debut from I Are Droid (who played in Stockholm last month; a third LP would be a pleasant surprise), and had already issued one of the most influential heavy rock records of the turn-of-the-century era in Lowrider‘s ultra-classic 2000 debut, Ode to Io (reissue review here). Bergstrand (who also did the design and layout for the digipak) and Rockner had both worked with Lidén previously in some context or other between Greenleaf and Dozer. Very much a drummer picking his bassists, which is probably what you want here. Erik Nilsson (Come Sleep, runs Version Studio in Stockholm) contributes guitar to highlight cut “I of Everything” — a hook to serve as landmark, and a righteous takeoff in its second half hitting its mark for post-metal’s requisite “Stones From the Sky” moment — as well as “Stalemates” and “For Redemption,” where Tommi Holappa (Dozer, Greenleaf) also adds the slide guitar that courses the melodic thread through the adrenaline-push crescendo. With Lidén‘s drums and keys at the core represented through his own signature production style — he gets a drum sound that is his own, period — the tracks on Kappa Delta Phi range far into atmospheric heavy and are willing to sound messy without being a mess, unfold into a landscape’s shimmer drone or dive into make-a-stinkface bludgeonry as “Born to Secrecy” nails its apex to your forehead. I count Vaka alongside Battle of Mice and SubRosa as an example of what I wish post-metal had evolved into.

5. Inevitably, I would finish by noting the never-say-never nature of rock and roll and life more generally, and perhaps wonder what might’ve been had Vaka done a second album or what might be if you rolled a 20 on a longshot and Lidén picked up the project again at some point. Not the most likely, not impossible, but for how much of Kappa Delta Phi is constructed around experiments in synth and keys laid over the drum tracks and then layered again with guitar, bass, more synth, vocals, etc., Lidén could have taken the band in any number of directions even just as regards his own songwriting, never mind putting together a lineup, playing live, or continuing with the ethic of guest performers. Whatever aesthetic elements might have been working in accord with the tenets of post-metal, Kappa Delta Phi was too much its own thing to be derivative, and wound up a singular expression and perhaps a footnote in a storied career, but only a footnote because not nearly enough people have heard this record.

And to go back to the top, I couldn’t decide which of these five approaches I wanted to take… so I took them all. For a collection that on paper might seem like a jumble but that proves coherent when engaged, it doesn’t seem like the least appropriate move. As always, I thank you for reading and hope you enjoy.

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Costco trip in a couple minutes, so I’m short on time. Need eggs, cheese, rug cleaner, a few other odds and ends. More possible during school hours, which are also my main writing hours these days. I’ve been playing a good bit of Zelda and relaxing some as well. The Patient Mrs. and I are doing a January yoga challenge that we also did last year, which I feel like a dork about but is actually awesome in the doing. Never underestimate the value of a good stretch in middle-age. That shit can make your whole day better.

The Patient Mrs. got sworn in on the Board of Education last night, so The Pecan and I rolled along (also like half my family was there) to see mommy continue to be amazing. We spent most of the time in a conference room down the hall with the Switch (kiddo also enjoys a good bit of Tears of the Kingdom and we mostly play as a family, but I do a decent bit of resource farming on my own as well because I’m compulsive and enjoy it), but she did get to be in the room for the actual thing. The board is divided politically, so her reasonable, ultra-competent, able-to-listen-and-process-and-then-respond-to-a-thing presence as a progressive can only be a boon. To say I am proud of her is laughable because she’s in another league entirely. I might as well be proud of the planet Jupiter.

Up and down week. The Pecan, super-punchy, mostly to The Patient Mrs. She’s got a long-term sub at school since her kindergarten teacher went out on maternity leave — till April rather than like the three years that are actually required for such a thing, because Americans are savages — and has never handled going from one thing to the other with smoothness generally. I don’t like having my routine upset either, if you couldn’t tell just from looking around this site, so I get where she’s coming from. She’s also not sleeping because ADHD drugs and being super-tired, super-resistant to the idea of laying down pretty much ever, and broadly given to ignoring you no less than 80 percent of the time when you ask her to do a thing, whether it’s go pee or grab a game to play — often that’s a question of her being hyperfocused on a thing, but yeah sometimes she’s just not giving a fuck — so perhaps it’s fair to note what success is being had despite the wobbly setup for it of late. I haven’t heard from the principal since at least early December for anything behavioral. The meds are working, which is a mantra. She lets me brush her hair. And sometimes, maybe once every day or two, you can say to please throw her socks in the wash or get her jacket and it’ll happen. It’s hard to remember after the tumult that defined the second half of 2023, but I don’t think that was the case last January, or at least not to the same proportion between the yes and no. We argue less than we used to, but I did say “bullshit” the other day when we were fighting to get her to take a bath. Ugh. In my defense, I was in the process of calling her a genius and telling her not to waste her time on bullshit. There are only so many hours in the day. Before dropoff this morning, The Patient Mrs. got the shit kicked out of her trying to put in pony tails for a school spirit day. We spend so much time doing that, we miss out on other stuff.

I also will note that I suck at and apparently don’t particularly enjoy fun. Fun is not fun for me. Fun is work. Fun is I gotta go to some place that I don’t want to be at, probably see a bunch of people, feel weird and put on and then do whatever wrong or badly and feel like garbage later. I’ve never been good at fun. I sucked at sports. I was fat and weird didn’t have a lot of friends. I wrote stories as a kid. I trudged around my neighborhood listening to Alice in Chains’ Dirt on my tape Walkman. This was my idea of a good time. What’s changed is that when you have a kid you have to go do all kinds of shit. You have to go to see things and be in places where people are and you have to pretend you feel normal doing any of it and it gets pretty wretched in my head. People talk about stuff that’s fun and I fear the word. Who the hell wants to get on a rollercoaster? Not even just for the fact that they’re shoddy or some safety concern. I mean who wants to get up, get dressed, leave their house to go to some expensive-ass theme park or some extra-rundown local thing or a town fair and go stand in line to get in, stand in line for tickets, stand in line for the ride, bake in the sun on a hot day, and then be shoved around and up and down in a machine at high speed, only to return to the ground like three minutes later expected to be grateful for the experience? Fuck that shit. I’ll stay home and eat a gummy.

And on that happy note, it’s time to go to Costco. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, and as always, I appreciate your time and value your being a part of this thing. Watch your head, don’t forget to hydrate, and I’ll be back on Monday with I don’t know probably a review and some more complaining about stuff, because I’m charming like that.

FRM.

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Demon Cleaner, The Freeflight (2000)

Something of a lost classic of its era now, Demon Cleaner‘s 2000 debut, The Freeflight isn’t actually all that lost. Molten Universe, the label that put it out 16 years ago along with early releases by related Swedish acts Dozer and Greenleaf, still has copies available. So maybe not lost, but in the pantheon of the beginnings of Europe’s stoner rock boom of the late ’90s and early ’00s, Demon Cleaner deserve consideration alongside Dozer and Lowrider, among others, and their name is often left off that list. Part of that I think is owed to timing. If the early-Fu Manchu fuzz of “Head Honcho” or “Megawheel” dropped today, it would come accompanied by a video of somebody skateboarding in slow motion and would be hailed for its post-grunge authenticity of tone and live feel. Because it was 2000 — a time when discovering music on the internet was something done largely through surfing somebody’s Napster offerings or the odd message board — the process was different and not nearly so widespread, and unlike Lowrider, who had US distribution through MeteorCity, or Dozer, who kept putting out records, Demon Cleaner called it quits after 2002’s self-titled follow-up (also on Molten Universe), with members moving onto Stonewall Noise Orchestra and drummer Karl Daniel Lidén joining Dozer and Greenleaf before embarking on solo material and a successful career as an engineer — he did the latest Katatonia, for example — so there hasn’t been the same kind of sustained legacy for Demon Cleaner as some of their peers.

That, of course, does nothing to diminish the “Spit blood and gasoline/Chrome and steel/Megawheel” appeal of that track or the nodding roll of “Up in Smoke,” or the push of a song like “Mothertrucker,” in which one can hear the roots of a brand of fuzz rock that countrymen acts like Truckfighters would continue to progress years later. Tone is a huge part of the appeal, as closer “Heading Home” successfully emphasizes, but there’s a rawness in the vocals, a dryness, where so much of what came afterwards was and has been drenched in reverb. It gives the delivery of guitarist Daniel Söderholm — joined at this point by Lidén, guitarist Kimmo Holappa and bassist/vocalist Martin Stangefelt — a punkish feel that’s ultimately much truer to the bulk of what came out of the Californian desert scene, whether it was Kyuss or heavy rock compatriots like the aforementioned Fu Manchu. Listening back to The Freeflight now, one can hear the aesthetic of pre-retro European heavy rock taking shape, and while Demon Cleaner may always be noted for having issued a trio of early splits alongside Dozer before their records dropped, linking those two acts and that scene, their albums deliver something from which even Dozer was operating on a different wavelength, and while of their time, I think these tracks still hold up all these years later.

If you’re worried about investing the time in checking it out, The Freeflight has a long break after “Heading Home” before a hidden cut, so it’s not actually 55 minutes long. I guess it was the Lowrider news earlier today got me thinking about these guys, but either way, I hope you enjoy.

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If you’re at Desertfest this weekend in either Berlin or London, I hope you have an absolute blast. I’ll admit to being more than a little jealous. Maybe next year I’ll get to Berlin finally or make a triumphant return to Camden Town. I’ll go anywhere that’ll have me, basically.

Rough week at work but who cares? Dragged down by bullshit. Hate letting it get to me. Hate that it does at all. The list goes on. Screw it. Got a couple days not to think about it, so I’m gonna hold tight to that.

Next week: Monday, track stream from Bright Curse and an in-studio report about the new Scissorfight being tracked at the new Mad Oak. Tuesday (right now), Crypt Sermon interview. Wednesday, track stream from Wo Fat. Thursday and Friday I don’t know yet, but probably something will come along, and there are also videos for Kadavar, Limestone Whale, Spiritual Beggars and Drive by Wire that have all dropped in like the last day, so a bit of a backlog there, but I’ll do my best to get on top of that as well. We’re getting into May already. Amazing how quick this year is going.

Before I go — much as I’m ever “gone,” what with writing on the weekends and all — I want to say thanks for the tremendous amount of support I’ve gotten for the book release, for the All-Dayer in August, and for this year’s Roadburn coverage. It’s all hugely appreciated. Because I work full-time in addition to doing this, I don’t always have the chance to be as communicative as I should, because quite literally the choice I make every day is to write or to do everything else and if it’s one or the other I’m writing every time, but please know that if you’ve reached out to me over the last few weeks, thank you. And if you haven’t and you’re reading this, thank you anyway.

Please have a great and safe weekend, and please check out the forum and the radio stream.

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It’s quite a ways to go from the self-titled Demon Cleaner album’s good-timey rocking Kyuss groove to Vaka‘s Kappa Delta Phi, but considering it took Karl Daniel Lid?n seven years to make the leap from playing drums on the one to doing everything on the other including producing and mixing, the stylistic shift at least has some context. With Vaka, Lid?n tackles a heavy post-metal aesthetic with a unique, piano-laden approach to what’s become a style flooded with mediocre bands.

That said, a Neurosis comparison isn’t necessarily inappropriate, and there are some Enemy Of The Sun-isms present for sure, but the brand of crushingly atmospheric experimentalism Vaka emit strikes even more like a hyper-realized version of Enslaved offshoot Trinacria, who released their Travel Now Journey Infinitely debut last year. There is a weighty darkness to the music that strikes as pure Scandinavian, rather than born out of US hard/metalcore as so many other post-metal acts are. Sounds more like itself, in other words. Not a bad thing.

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