Album Review: Dozer, Drifting in the Endless Void
Posted in Reviews on April 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Dozer return. A decade almost to the day after beginning a reunion at Desertfest in Berlin and London (review here) and having played festivals and select other dates all the while if not having fully resumed life as a touring band, and the better part of two years announcing the project as part of Blues Funeral Recordings‘ PostWax subscription vinyl series — for which, in the interest of full disclosure, I wrote/write the liner notes — after full catalogue reissues through Heavy Psych Sounds and years of will-they-won’t-they speculation on the part of their audience, Dozer offer the Karl Daniel Lidén-helmed seven songs/42 minutes of Drifting in the Endless Void as a decade-and-a-half-later follow-up to 2008’s Beyond Colossal (featured here, discussed here, 2009 interview here), and part of what’s so stunning about it is that it makes that ridiculous idea a reality. A ‘follow-up’ 15 years later. Imagine where you were 15 years ago, who you were. Do you think you could step back into being that person?
Of course, the narrative here is more complex. Dozer announced their hiatus in 2009, but haven’t been actually-gone for a long time, and as founding guitarist Tommi Holappa has spent the intervening years building his concurrent outfit Greenleaf into a full-time touring act — in some ways fulfilling the role that Dozer otherwise might and taking on a more modern heavy sound, where Greenleaf was once a classic ’70s-style heavy rock side-project — they’ve never been entirely absent from consideration, the prospect of a new album looming over their being added to one fest or another, here, there, or Germany. But the ease with which Holappa and fellow founding member, guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Nordin — whose voice is no less a part of what makes Dozer who they are than the riffs or bombastic style of a song like “Run, Mortals, Run!” here — bassist Johan Rockner and drummer Sebastian Olsson (also of Greenleaf) have apparently stepped back into being Dozer is striking.
Part of that is the collaboration with the aforementioned Lidén on production. The history between the two parties is significant and winding, with his having been in Demon Cleaner, with whom Dozer did splits early on, having played in Greenleaf and produced Dozer numerous times in the past, which is not to mention drumming on 2005’s Through the Eyes of Heathens (featured here; discussed here) and the demo collection released during their hiatus, Vultures (review here; discussed here) — that, by the way, is the short version of the association thread — but his work at the board of Studio Gröndal is essential to the sound of Drifting in the Endless Void, from the opening riff and ride cymbal taps, thuds and frenetic tension that launches the record with the seven-and-a-half-minute “Mutation/Transformation” to the fullness of the groove that ensues in the last build and don’t-want-to-let-go finish of bookending closer “Missing 13” (also the longest song at 8:35), the balance between spaciousness and crunch in the mix seeming to pick up where the band left off those years ago like nothing ever happened. Like, oh, turns out Dozer were right there the whole time. Here’s “Dust for Blood.”
That song, which caps side A and is a standout hook even among Dozer‘s various surging choruses in “Ex-Human, Now Beast,” “Mutation/Transformation” and the intentionally grandiose crescendo of centerpiece “Andromeda” still to come, is quintessential Dozer. With an energy that comes through the kick drum and a threat of aggression coinciding, it is atmospheric in the reach of its echo around Nordin‘s vocals (which were self-recorded) and immediate in Rockner‘s bassline in the verse with the guitar picking up for the somehow-swaggering chorus push. They toy with pace throughout, as “No Quarter Expected, No Quarter Given” moves into and through a relative frenzy in its second half and hits into a false stop before bursting back into its own chorus, “Andromeda” rides its melancholy groove so fluidly, and “Run, Mortals, Run!” — yes, there is a lot of punctuation in the song titles; don’t get hung up — finds consciousness and purpose within its intensity, guitar howling out like a siren at about three and a half minutes into the 6:44 before the loud/quiet trade and ending ensue, the four-piece clearheaded in following a plot while making a thrill of the going.
But if one feels in listening like they’re riding a car that’s hitting the bumps in the road on purpose, the adrenaline that courses throughout Drifting in the Endless Void is also a crucial part of Dozer‘s approach and has been at least since 2002’s Call it Conspiracy (discussed here; also discussed here); they write songs you can feel in your blood, and they’d seem to know it. At the same time, it’s not 2009, or 2013, and as this material was written between 2021 and 2022 (recorded in Spring a year ago), it’s a fresh look at who Dozer are today. These aren’t tracks that have been laying around since 2015, and accordingly, Drifting in the Endless Void benefits from not being overworked. Of course there’s a plan at work — it would be hard to follow the course charted by “No Quarter Expected, No Quarter Given” through its snare-stomp-punctuated ebbs and flows and argue otherwise — but part of what lets the album as an entirety live up to the near-impossible expectations upon it is the fact that it avoids the issue entirely. Dozer know who they are.
And that awareness extends to their ability to be sweeping in their largesse or intimate and subdued, or both if we’re talking about the “Everything will be okay” reassurances that become the apex of “Missing 13” at the record’s conclusion, but in that, Drifting in the Endless Void isn’t just Dozer doing an impression of what Dozer used to be, either in sound or substance. These songs reach farther, find new middle grounds between one extreme or the other, and define themselves in part by how they interact with each other — the transitions between “Andromeda” and “No Quarter Expected, No Quarter Given,” or the dead stop of “Ex-Human, Now Beast” and the bright clarion of guitar at the start of “Dust for Blood” create a flow that, while still a series of individual tracks, gives the album a whole-work feel — and to think that a band would release a sixth album 15 years after their fifth and have it sound the same is ludicrous anyway. Dozer have grown. Mutated and transformed? Maybe. I’m not sure they could’ve gone to the same kinds of places during their original run as they do in that first cut or what follows. But they’re still Dozer.
It would be hyperbole to say Drifting in the Endless Void was worth the wait as the ‘next thing’ from the band, but that’s kind of true as well. At very least, the album justifies the anticipation that’s greeted it and reaffirms just how not-done Dozer were when they went on hiatus. Calling it a heavy rock landmark for 2023 feels like underselling it. Calling it one of the year’s best records? Superfluous. It’s not a record about this year or the last 15 years or even about next year. It’s a testament to everything Dozer have done that has both stood the test of time and remained so decisively individualized that nobody has been able to come along and do it better. This band, doing this thing, in their way. Inimitable. There has only ever been one Dozer. Thank goodness they showed up here.
Dozer, Drifting in the Endless Void (2023)
Dozer, “Ex-Human, Now Beast” official video
Dozer, “Dust for Blood” official video
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