I never closed out last week. I’ll admit, at first it was just because I hit the wine Friday night, but then I thought I’d use that as an excuse to try something different. Certainly I did nothing on Saturday except sit on my ass and not work on that thesis I’m supposed to be writing, but even so, I decided we’d open this week with a Mundee video instead of close the last with a Frydee one. Doesn’t even make a difference in terms of where the post appears, but what the hell. I take my changes where I can get ‘em.

Good stuff to come over the next five days, in any case. I went and saw Monster Magnet last night at Starland Ballroom and I’ll have a review and photos up before today’s out, and before this week is over (and also before Friday at 5PM, which is a terrible time to post anything) I’ll have a new interview posted with acclaimed visual artist Brian Mercer and Six Dumb Questions with NJ rockers Boss 302, whose album was reviewed last week. Reviews on tap from Bulletwolf (that’s today), Evoken, Curse the Son and Graveyard, and the usual bunch of On the Radars, Buried Treasures and Whathaveyous.

It’s a snow day here in the valley, but I still have to get to class later, and I have some homework to do before that. I’ll get there. In any case, I hope you had a great weekend, hope you have a great week going forward, and hope you enjoy the Dozer above. “Man of Fire” from their excellent Through the Eyes of Heathens album. I thought a little something energetic would be good to start the week off right. Like eggs in the morning.

Mmm… eggs. Looks like I just added another line to the to-do list.

I’ve beaten a hasty retreat to Connecticut for the night in the hope that a quick rest-cure by the sea will be just the thing to help me vanquish once and for all a cold that’s had me down for more than a week now. Yes, more travel. That’s the answer. I’ll do that.

Rest assured, I won’t be here too long, though, what with the Kings Destroy/The Nolan Gate/Choirs of Titan show The Obelisk is presenting tomorrow night in Hoboken at 123 Harrison St. (see flyer below). It’s gonna be a killer time, and if you want to look for me, I’ll be the bearded dude with long hair probably spouting off at too loud a volume about how the rest of the city of Hoboken can kiss his ass. Good times, people!

If you’re not in the area, I hope you enjoy whatever it is you’re doing, and if you are in the area, I hope to see you there. Either way, enjoy the weekend. Here’s that flier:

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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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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It is hour three of a football game about which you couldn’t care less if they paid you. Your family is just approaching the line of intoxicated where the passive aggression is activated. Your little cousin has just asked you where he or she can score some pot. You were hopeful this year would be different. You need an escape.

Suddenly, you remember The Obelisk posted a buttload of videos for just such an occasion, called it a “Pre-Thanksgiving Media Blitz,” figuring that maybe on this most familial of holidays, heads might need a break from everything, if only for a couple minutes. And is there a better way to spend that break than watching high quality live videos from Kyuss, Dozer, Colour Haze, Alabama Thunderpussy, Dixie Witch, Black Pyramid and — for those whose day is even a little more stressful — Acid Bath? You’ve already hid out in the bathroom long enough to do all the crossword puzzles in that book. Relax and enjoy the entertainment. At least catch your breath.

Truth be told, this is as much for me as it is for any of you who might see the benefit of it. Being the pajama-clad social misfit I am, even the thought of bringing my family together with that of The Patient Mrs. is enough to make me want to crawl into a hole. I fully anticipate excusing myself from the before-dinner goings on to come upstairs and watch at least one of these clips. And to make it holiday-special, I tried to find the best quality stuff I could. The Colour Haze video from DunaJam alone gives me a sense of inner peace, which I anticipate needing on Thanksgiving as much as another glass of wine.

If you’re like me (and if not, congratulations on your well-adjustedness), please enjoy the videos after the jump and remember, no matter what the tv tells you, you don’t actually have to get up at five in the morning to go shopping at Target.

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Nothing like starting a short week off with some righteously sad shit. StonerRock.com posted the ellipse-filled update below from Dozer guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Nordin, and while I can hardly fault the dude for pursuing an education — life, after all, is bigger than stoner rock — I certainly hope this isn’t the end of Dozer, who are quite simply one of the best rock bands on the planet. Their latest album, Beyond Colossal is out on Small Stone, and if you haven’t heard it yet, you should.

Here’s the story:

“Howdy Folks,

Well I don?t know where to start really. But the story?s like this…

I just started school, for the third time. I know we had an upcoming tour in England (and shows in Holland, Belgium and Greece). But the tour and school collided in a such bad way, that I won?t be able to do the tour. Seeing this might be my last chance at an education, I just can?t give it up. So what that means in short…

We?ve decided to take a break for an indefinite period of time. On the 13th of November we have a gig in our hometown. If it will be the last gig? Only time will tell. But we?re pretty confident that it won?t be…

Take care / Fredrik in Dozer?

Note that the tour he’s talking about having to cancel was a run of dates with fellow Swedes, Truckfighters, which would have been some of the awesomest shit of the year to see. I’ve been trying to convince The Patient Mrs. that we really need to go to the UK in November, so I guess I can stop bugging her about that. What a bummer. Hopefully they’ll be back soon.

I’m not sure I need one, but I do have an excuse for posting the video for Dozer‘s “From Fire Fell” off of 2005′s Through the Eyes of Heathens, and that is that it’s one of the songs guitarist Tommi Holoppa cited in the interview he did for The Obelisk as having informed the direction of the band’s new album, Beyond Colossal. If you haven’t checked that record out yet, it’s your own damn fault. Enjoy.

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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First off, you’ll notice it doesn’t say “The 5 Man’s Ruin Albums No Home Should Be Without” and that’s because although these have been meticulously judged by a panel of no less than 17 home-bound experts (all of whom were me), this list could just as easily have included records from the likes of Nebula, Melvins, Fu Manchu, Suplecs, Desert Sessions, Beaver, earthlings?, Che, The Hellacopters, Sons of Otis, Operator Generator, Unida, High on Fire and more, or even just alternates from the bands listed. Let’s face it, until the label folded in 2001, artist Frank Kozik released a lot of good shit via Man’s Ruin, most of which costs a lot of money on eBay and Amazon these days.

Let it also be known that this list entirely excludes the vinyl output of the label. Why? Because that shit is even more expensive and that’s not a collection I dare start in these hard economic times. If you think the LPs, EPs and 7″s should be included, send them to me and I’ll put them right up, I promise.

Enough disclaiming. Click that little “read more” link right there and see which five CDs in your MR collection you should be proudest to own.

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