I was surprised to learn The Kings of Frog Island were releasing the third installment of their purported trilogy, not because two years after II was so soon, but just because I haven’t yet finished listening to that album. Nonetheless comes III, released like 2005’s self-titled and the 2008 follow-up through Germany’s Elektrohasch Schallplatten and a further development of the UK outfit’s fuzz-laden style. At the center of the attack are vocalist/guitarists Mark Buteux and Mat Bethancourt (the latter ex-Josiah and current Dexter Jones Circus Orchestra) and drummer Roger “Dodge” Watson, though Gavin Searle adds vocals, Gregg Hunt plays bass and there are numerous guests throughout. The Kings of Frog Island are what early Desert Sessions jams might have been had they happened in London in the winter instead of, well, the desert.

The main comparison point for The Kings of Frog Island has always been Queens of the Stone Age, and that holds true on III. After the opening intro “In Memoriam,” on which a list of condemned is read out over beating drums, there comes “Glebe Street Whores,” which has shades of “Regular John” from the Queens of the Stone Age 1998 self-titled release in its insistent rhythm and catchy riff. The vocals come on strong, somewhat overblown, and seem to rest on top of the instruments in the mix rather than cut through them, which can make them seem loud. That comes up again later in the album, but if you can find just the right volume and adjust your equalizer to fill out the sound, it’s not an issue. One of III’s catchiest tracks, “Bride of Suicide,” follows “Glebe Street Whores,” and is pushed along at a good clip by steady snare hits from Watson and a good balance of cleaner and fuzz-soaked guitars over a long opening lead section. On first listen, III will sound like The Kings of Frog Island have abandoned some of the warmth of II, and maybe they have, I don’t know, but these songs are still plenty hairy.

There’s a sonic shift with “Dark on You,” on which the album begins to move slower, more deliberately, and with a moodier (and not surprisingly, given the title) darker feel. Longing takes the fore as the central emotion during the oft-repeated memorable chorus, and some lightly strummed guitar from either Buteux or Bethancourt – or maybe someone else, The Kings of Frog Island aren’t  exactly forthcoming with the credits – reminds that the band is up to more than simple stoner rock songwriting. That’s reinforced on “The Keeper Of…,” which is longer, more feedback-centric and reminiscent somewhat of II’s more meandering moments. The opening segment reminds me too of the intro to the title track of Los Natas’ Nuevo Orden de la Libertad, but that’s more likely sonic coincidence than anything else, and there’s certainly more to the track than its beginning; the open jam feels recorded live and added to, filled out, by later studio work, which is not a side III has yet shown.

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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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When last we left British guitarist/vocalist Mat Bethancourt, he was detailing the battle between the planets Satanica and Amphibia for all the lost souls in the universe as it played out on the second album from his band, The Kings of Frog Island. Bethancourt (also of Josiah) now joins bassist/backing vocalist Gregg Hunt and drummer Dan Lockton in Cherry Choke, a garage rocking power trio whose self-titled debut album, available via Elektrohasch Schallplatten, revels in its simplicity and rootsy flavor.

Split even on CD into sides one and two, Cherry Choke offers 10 straightforward tracks wherein the fuzzy tone that’s come to be expected from Bethancourt in Josiah and The Kings of Frog Island mostly takes a back seat to a cleaner type of distortion akin to the ’70s-inspired indie that’s dominated the party rock ideal for the better part of this decade. If I said Cherry Choke takes inspiration from Hendrix, The Stooges, MC5 and T-Rex, it would be the same as saying “they play garage rock,” but there it is.

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II, the aptly-titled second album from the UK‘s The Kings of Frog Island is the very essence of stoner rock, packed so tightly with fuzz-laden grooves that all you can do is sit and space to it. The hypnotic vibe of “Welcome to the Void” could be prescribed as medication for anxiety disorders, and the darkness of cuts like “The Watcher” and “Witching Hour” take a cosmopolitan approach to classic heavy metal paranoia, bringing influences not only from the deserts of California, but also the echoing gospel tones of Southern Appalachia.

To hear multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Mat Bethancourt (also of classic fuzz rockers Josiah and newborn amped up garage trio Cherry Choke) tell it, they’re just a bunch of stoners writing songs about planetary warfare. In any case, right on.

The album comes some three point five years after its predecessor (delivered by none other than heavy psych’s foremost purveyors, Elektrohasch), and was largely recorded live at guitarist Mark Buteux‘s Amphibia Sound Studios on June 6, 2006. Roger “Dodge” Watson provides a classic ping ride behind “Joanne Marie” and drives the rest of II deep into the reaches of a catchy, classic pop-flavored stratosphere, setting expectations high for what will reportedly be the last album of a trilogy. You’ll never guess the title.

After the jump, Bethancourt fills The Obelisk in on all things future, past and present, including what happened to bring Josiah to an untimely end and when we can expect that third installment from The Kings of Frog Island.

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