Well, they’re from Sweden, and they rock, so I guess they have my vote. It doesn’t take much time to head over to the link below and cast a quick vote for Ponamero Sundown — whose Rodeo Eléctrica album was released earlier this year — to play the Sweden Rock fest, so I figured I’d post the news in case anyone has a spare second and a half to help out.

Dig it:

Great news from Ponamero Sundown camp! The band has been picked out for an ongoing competition to play at Sweden Rock Festival next June. The three bands who get the most votes get to play at the festival and Ponamero Sundown are among the 100 out of 1500 who got picked! Now we need your help in order to get this awesome stonerfuzz rock expedition spreads the riffage at the festival. The link where you can submit your votes is below, anyone can vote once a day, no registration needed. Thanks!

http://www.swedenrock.com/index.cfm?lg=2&pg=574

After a few initial listens, the core contrast of Mortui Vivos Docent – the Night Tripper Records debut album from Swedish heavy/doom rockers Obrero – begins to sink in. It’s the vocals. Even before doing any research at all on the band or its personnel, there was something about them that seemed pulled right out of classic metal, right out of the thrash era. It wasn’t until I went so far as to (gasp!) read the liner notes that I discovered the man behind the mic in Obrero is Martin Missy of the once-and-apparently-again German thrash unit Protector. In Obrero, he partners with guitarists Fredrik Pihlström and Mathias Öjermark (the latter also the occasional keys), bassist Magnus Karkea and drummer Calle Sjöström — who would all seem to be the Stockholm contingent in the band, if names are anything to go by – to nestle the sound of Mortui Vivos Docent somewhere between Euro-style stoner metal and doom. If the band represents a side-project for Missy from the reactivated Protector, he’s not the only one; everyone in the band either was or is active in the thrash or speed metal genres. Karkea and Sjöström are both members of Talion, as are Missy and Pihlström, who’s also been in Melting Flesh and Bloodbanner, among others. The only member of Obrero not also found in Talion’s lineup is Öjermark, who was both in Melting Flesh with Pihlström and an outfit called Ruins of Time with Missy, so everyone’s connected here multiple times over, all seem to be familiar with each other’s playing – Obrero’s relative ease of execution backs that theory – and all are stepping outside of the styles in which they’ve made a home to explore new ground.

They’re not the first from thrash to do so (at times Obrero reminds of a less directly blues-derived version of The Cursed, which featured vocalist Bobby Blitz of OverKill and Hades’ Dan Lorenzo), but one of the factors that most stands Mortui Vivos Docent out among the throng of heavy rock and doom out there is how seamlessly it blends the two. Where “Svantovit” – particularly in Sjöström’s drums, but also in the guitar – reminds at first of something Kyuss might have done in their middle period, it soon moves into Trouble-styled classic guitar-led doom, the synth from Öjermark adding class and melody behind Missy’s mostly-rhythmic verse, which follows the guitar line well in metallic tradition. That song is among the high points of Mortui Vivos Docent (which translates from the Latin to “The Dead Teach the Living”), but it has plenty of company in its quality level. The center portion of the album’s total eight tracks finds one of its smoothest transitions in that between the riffy “The Fourth Earl” and the darker, more doom-derived “Octaman.” Both songs are led by Pihlström and Öjermark with Karkea and Sjöström underscoring the groove in the rhythm section, but they take different approaches, showing more stylistic diversity between them than, say, the earlier “Son of Tutankhamun,” which seemed to take the time to meld the two styles into one song. Both approaches are valid on their own – either combining doom and stoner rock or keeping them separate – but by utilizing both methods, Obrero show they are not only well versed in their genre, but in songwriting too, which ultimately is going to help them more than any amount of fandom or intricacy of influence could.

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True to form for the Stockholm jammers’ penchant for open structures and extended spontaneous interludes, there is a whole host of guests on their new live album, Root Jam. That’s nothing new for Siena Root, who even on their own number anywhere from a four- to a six-piece band, and whose last studio offering, Different Realities (2009), lived up to its title in terms of its diversity of approach and melding heavy riffs, jams and excursions into psychedelic and subcontinental-Asian songwriting.

Root Jam leaves space for plenty of that as well, and at nearly 92-minutes, the album is a two-disc beast. A cut like the organ-heavy “Words” reaches well over 12 minutes to end the record/set’s first half, and the whole midsection of the song is Eastern instrumentation met with killer guitar leads. There are several such passages throughout, and Siena Root know how to keep it flowing and cohesive, despite the variety they bring out of the music.

Transubstans Records was kind enough to let me host the more straightforward “The Rat” for your streaming pleasure. If you’ve never heard Siena Root before, it’s a pretty good place to start, the guest vocals adding soul to the bluesy groove of the riffs. Hope you dig it:

Root Jam is out in October on Transubstans Records. More info available at the label’s site. Here’s what they have to say about it:

Above all else, this extensive double live album is a resume of Siena Root‘s early years. This album features all the elements of the band, from their debut up to recent days. They have managed to pour the band’s dynamic energy from the stage right into this box of 91 minutes root rock. You will for sure find the good old heavy riffs, side-by-side with psychedelic vibes and groovy jams.

But there is more, much more to experience in this magnificent album. There are no less than nine guest artists featured, with a range from classical violin by Martin Stensson from Swedish radio symphonic orchestra, to legendary blues guitarist Maxi Dread. You will also find a lot of Siena Root family from the past such as Tängman and vocalists Oskar and Sanya performing songs on a new level. On top of it all you get previously unreleased material and two rare acoustic tracks that reveal a new side of the band. The album will also be released on LP by Headspin Records.

Listening to Rodeo Eléctrica, Stockholm rockers Ponamero Sundown’s second offering through Transubstans, I had to go back and make sure I had the right band. From what I recalled of the four-piece from their Stonerized debut (review here), they were gleeful in their stoner-rockingness, a little boozy, and primarily fuzzed out in the Swedish tradition. Rodeo Eléctrica, on the other hand, is slick and almost commercial sounding in its overall affect, the band forsaking the unassuming good times of “Alcoholic Deathride” and “Doctor of Evil” for the straightforward crunch of “1025” and the processed-sounding drums that launch the album on opener “Evil Wand.” It’s a shock, but had I not heard Stonerized, Rodeo Eléctrica probably wouldn’t sound so different from a lot of the less-fuzzed end of European stoner rock. Certainly the post-Colour Haze extended jam ethic that’s taken hold south of Scandinavia in Germany and The Netherlands doesn’t apply to Ponamero Sundown, but what they’re doing on Rodeo Eléctrica’s 13 tracks should still be familiar enough to anyone who’s heard their labelmates and countrymen Abramis Brama or Stonewall Noise Orchestra.

What Rodeo Eléctrica most has in common with Stonerized and with the above-noted Swedish acts is its consistency of songwriting. In a way the album feels very pieced-together from necessary components – they have the softer cuts in “Sorrows” and “Fathomless Nothingness,” the interludes in “Rodeo Eléctrica Part I” and the acoustic “Not the Time,” the slower, more contemplative “The Ghost” and plenty of upbeat rock in between on songs like “Sorrows,” “The Dice,” “1025” and “Shot for Glory” – but however familiar these elements might be, Ponamero Sundown put them to excellent use and place them precisely where they need to be for the record to work. The production is a major factor in the sound shift and in a lot of ways, it sounds like they had a checklist of what a heavy rock album needed and then set about filling it in their writing. As the final moments of “The Ghost” pick up and the song leads into Rodeo Eléctrica’s most memorable cut, “Goddess of the Sun,” I won’t deny they pull it off, but it’s worth acknowledging that Ponamero Sundown – guitarist Anders, bassist Oliver, vocalist Nicke and drummer Peter – sound conscious of every move they’re making here, and no matter how crisp the recording is or the quality of the songcraft, that the inevitable sacrifice is a feeling of spontaneity and novelty in the finished product.

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If there was one lesson learned from New Keepers of the Water Towers’ MeteorCity debut, Chronicles (review here), it was that the Stockholm four-piece were just getting started in terms of their development, and that despite their abundance of sonic pummel, the really interesting work lay ahead of them. Chronicles was a compilation of two EPs, and two years later, they follow it with The Calydonian Hunt (also MeteorCity), a half-hour full-length that plays off some of the same ideas and influences as Chronicles, but shows an unmistakable sonic growth. The four-piece – who previously were lacking a bassist where now the position is filled by Robin Holmberg, though Edward Hansson also plays on a few tracks – self-recorded The Calydonian Hunt over the course of 2009-2010, but rather than sound sloppily pieced together, the record has such a flow to it that it sounds more like a single-track with different movements, rather than a collection of songs written and recorded during a year’s span. The tracks don’t bleed into each other apart from “Mankind’s Fall” and “Arise, the Serpent,” but there’s a continuity of approach and flow that nonetheless pushes the album smoothly along its plotted course of beastly, bearded riff metal.

Perhaps the biggest point of change between Chronicles and The Calydonian Hunt is New Keepers of the Water Towers’ melodic capability. Vocalist/guitarist Rasmus Booberg (who also handled the album artwork), guitarist/vocalist Victor Berg and drummer/vocalist Tor Sjödén share singing duties well, giving the tracks a varied feel and occasionally – as on “Arise, the Serpent” or the title cut – give the material a dramatic boost that wasn’t there before. Flaming Thyrr of Dead Nugent (about whom I can find absolutely no information) guests on the semi-ballad “Crystal Lake,” kicking off the second half of the album with surprising accessibility that would be all the more so were it not for the production, which seems at all times to play up the heaviest aspects of the band. That song, which follows the interlude “The Call From the Cosmos,” is clearly meant to be a focal point. It took me a couple listens to get what Booberg and company were going for – at first the song sounded overly commercial to my American ears – but then I remembered that in the European market, it’s possible to be both accessible and rocking without necessarily sacrificing one for the other, and in the context of the heaviness surrounding, “Crystal Lake” made a lot more sense. They were trying something new, taking the oh-so-hot-right-now American ethic of blending metal and pop and applying it to a more European sound. It takes some getting used to, but given the melodies of the title track and the burlier closer “The Sword in the Stone,” it’s not so out of place.

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Swedish trio Grand Magus are a long, long way from where they started out 12 years ago. The doom of their earliest demos and 2001 self-titled debut is long gone, as over time and the course of their four subsequent albums, vocalist/guitarist Janne “JB” Christofferson, bassist Fox Skinner (bonus points for awesome name) and drummer Sebastian “Seb” Sippola – who came aboard between 2005’s Wolf’s Return and 2008’s Iron Will – have evolved into a genuine beast of epic metal. Not power metal, at least not in terms of the dramatic elements that genre designation carries with it, but still definitively epic, taking cues from Judas Priest and the best of the British New Wave and blending lyrical themes from Scandinavian paganism to concoct a sound almost completely their own. On their latest and fifth offering, Hammer of the North (released physically in Europe last year on Roadrunner and in the US digitally via the same label at the end of January), Grand Magus make yet another step in their charted progression. The US version of the album collects 11 tracks to cover 52:32, and though it’s not without its filler, the level of songwriting across the board is stellar and the performances throughout harness the hair-raising power of heavy metal as only the greatest of practitioners can.

The production, it’s worth noting, is unrepentantly modern. Though the underground metal climate in the US has largely turned against digital recording methods – in ideology if not always in practice – in Europe, Grand Magus has genuine mainstream viability, and as such it makes sense for Hammer of the North to be produced as it is. The album begins with one of its several memorable tracks, “I, The Jury,” on which the trio starts in barn-burning fashion. Sippola proves as he did on Iron Will that he’s a fantastic drummer, changing at a moment’s notice into half-time grooves and keeping the footwork both tasteful and exciting (even if his drums are probably triggered), and Christofferson elicits a solo from the ether that enhances the song, rather than coming off as forced. “Hammer of the North,” which follows, brings out some of the heathen lyricism and anti-Christian thematics – “We trample the cross” – but these aren’t overdone either, and it’s clear that Hammer of the North is going to be a classy affair throughout. Grand Magus, in fashion true to the first part of their name, have set a stately tone, and are firmly in command of their sound. The quiet outro of the title-track and chanting lead-in for “Black Sails” – an understated Viking ode that only gets better with volume – makes for a smooth transition, but make no mistake, Hammer of the North is very much song-based. It’s not like Grand Magus sat down and wrote it all as one piece, and ultimately it’s because of the strength of its individual parts that the whole stands out.

That’s not to say it carries a feel like it was written for radio hits or something like that. Even in the more metal-friendly European musical climate, I don’t know how huge this stuff is in terms of sales – at least as compares to the more swoopy-haired, breakdown-laden “hardcore” that seems to have taken over the universe in the last several years – but Grand Magus’ natural strength is undoubtedly in writing traditional verse/chorus structures. Both “Black Sails” and “Mountains be My Throne” are straightforward and unpretentious, but filled with a kind of stylistic grandeur that sets them apart from other works of classic metal. Credit for this has to go to Christofferson, who is probably one of the best working vocalists in heavy metal today. Backed by Skinner, the singing on Hammer of the North is the source of some of its greatest appeal, and even on the head-down forward-drive of “Northern Star,” they find room for a fantastic chorus. There’s layering throughout in the voices, as with the guitar – the solo of “Northern Star” being a rare misstep both in terms of production and execution – but they’re not quite at Blind Guardian levels yet. Again, classy. All of Hammer of the North has a metallic sheen, and it works greatly to the songs’ benefit.

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Kind of hard to believe, but an Obelisk search for Roachpowder brings up nothing. This means either I’ve mentioned them before and all my back posts are deleted (and if that’s the case, I don’t want to know), or this post is the first time the Stockholm band have been discussed on the site. They were pretty killer. End of discussion.

Stay tuned next week as we’ll wrap the month of July. I have exciting news regarding both my life situation and The Maple Forum, so look for that to come before next Friday, as well as reviews from Horseback, Black Sleep of Kali and several others. Next week is my last in Vermont, and The Patient Mrs. and I are headed to Burlington over the weekend, so I hope to come back with some Buried Treasure-type goodies to report on.

Good fun all around. I hope you enjoy the Roachpowder track above and I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Cheers.

If I’m a sucker for anything in this universe, it’s Swedish stoner rock. There’s plenty of great bands out there from the rest of the world, but for my money, the Swedes do it with a love and respect for the genre that — as a nation — no one else can match. You’re be hard pressed these days to even find a band in the US to admit they even play stoner rock, let alone actually do it.

As such, Stockholm‘s Death Rattle Six, who’ve just self-released their second album in two years (fourth overall) in the form of Death Rattle Six, are definitely on my radar. I haven’t heard the complete album, but the old-school four-piece (vocals, guitar, bass, drums) have posted four of the tracks on their MySpace page for checking out, and I’ve been gladly rocking out to the early Dozerisms of “Rover” and the Truckfighters-style fuzz of “Down the Hole.” Death Rattle Six claim an Alice in Chains influence, and I can hear it in the way singer Greg layers his voice on “The Beast Within,” but it’s not the rampant bottom of the mouth “Hey whoa yea-yuh” that’s infected so much of American commercial hard rock in the last two decades. More like a less laid back Asteroid.

If any of these words — Dozer, Truckfighters, Asteroid — are ringing a bell with you, you’d do well to look up “Torn Inside,” which makes use of a similar nighttime desertry. Death Rattle Six are, at least on these four tracks, playing desert rock exclusively, but if their genre sticktoitiveness is admirable, all the more so is the fact that the basic instrumental tracks for the Death Rattle Six album were done completely live. As in the most successful cases where that’s so, these songs have an urgency to them which simply can’t be faked.

They have links (again, on their MySpace) where you can buy Death Rattle Six on CDBaby or iTunes, but they also appear to be giving it away via internationally famed torrent site The Pirate Bay. Of course, The Obelisk urges you to support quality independent talent however you can. For me, that means keeping Death Rattle Six on the radar and looking forward to hearing the rest of the album.

When I pulled up to the Championship Bar and Grill in Trenton, the street outside was taped off and cop cars had their lights flashing. The whole trip down, I had been feeling and saying, “There’s no way this show’s going to happen,” and that seemed to confirm it. But no. Someone got hit by a car, probably killed. The show must go on.

Trenton, for anyone who might not be aware, is the capital of my beloved New Jersey and an utter shithole. Not as bad as Camden, but probably on the level of Paterson, where corrupt officials have raped the budgets that might otherwise help these working class people not live in fear of gang violence or police violence or drugs or whatever else I wouldn’t know about because of my pampered northern existence. Not a nice place even to drive through in most neighborhoods. The kind of place whites send sociologists to study black people and Mexicans like they were tribes in the Amazon.

Good fun. On the bill with Swedish masters of death Entombed was a plethora of pay-to-play NJ hardcore bands. Way to go, whoever booked the show. Don’t actually put together a killer bill or anything so that people might show up and/or stick around. Jerks. I didn’t see any of the openers, got there just two beers before Entombed went on. There were maybe 35 people there.

Championship‘s changed the stage layout since last I was there, which was the smart move. Now, about four inches high, the stage resides in the corner of the room (much better than where it was), and as Entombed made ready to start up, guitarist Alex Hellid was having some trouble with equipment. He ran his guitar through four different heads into Emperor cabinets, so I’d imagine amp troubles happen not infrequently. He got it all sorted in good time though.

I was right up front. Now, when I say that, I mean it. Right. Fucking. There. L-G Petrov was about as far away from me last night as my computer monitor is now. Maybe two feet. This, however, is a boundary I respect. That’s a big two feet. The difference is between stage and audience. That’s not to be fucked with. We shook hands once or twice, headbanged together in a deathly metallic tradition, and all was well throughout their set, which was heavy as fuck and given, in no small part by the surroundings, a punk-ish feel that the band just ate up.

It’s been a while since I was at a show with any moshing, and there wasn’t much of it, but as Little Guy with Glasses decided he was gonna fuck shit up NJHC-style, I couldn’t help but be annoyed. South Jersey is a completely different animal from North Jersey. It’s the difference between New York and Philadelphia, essentially, and while I love Philly like I love no other city on this earth and would make a home there in a second if I could afford it, South Jersey has more than its fair share of human trainwrecks, some of whom listen to hardcore, and some of whom who stuck around for Entombed.

I took a swing at one big dude that went wide after being knocked over, grabbed the guy and wrestled around, getting a decent shot in his side as I did. Crowd gathered to split us up. Fucking hell. I don’t care if you mosh, but if I don’t want to be involved in it, leave me to my beer, my headbanging and the fucking show. Otherwise it’s rape. There. I said it. I was mosh-raped.

Dickheads aside (isn’t that life?), the set was fantastic. I’ll probably never have the chance again to catch Entombed in that kind of setting, in so small a venue, with so few people around, so up close and intense, that I was bound to come out on top either way. They played about a sampling of their catalog highlights — I don’t even know how long the set was, but I was out of there by midnight and I got there at 10PM — from “Left Hand Path” to “Chief Rebel Angel” and closing with “When in Sodom.” No encore, but a great time. I hope they got paid well, or, since it’s Jersey, at all.

Obviously I have no idea how Entombed felt about playing such a minuscule show after the Maryland Deathfest, whether they were into it or not — I would think it would be kind of a letdown, but who knows — but I certainly enjoyed it. Seeing them easily justified the total three-hours road time, and even with the douche-factor, it’s a definite win. Quite a way to kick off the summer.