Swedish godfathers of stoner rock DOZER return after over a decade with their long-anticipated sixth studio album "Drifting in the Endless Void", to be released this April 21st on Blues Funeral Recordings. Watch their brand new video for "Ex-Human, Now Beast" right now!
About Dozer's awaited comeback, Dozer co-founder and lead guitarist Tommi Holappa comments: "It’s been 15 years since the last Dozer album and this is who we are now. We might be older, maybe not so much wiser, but I think we may have made one of our best albums. When we started writing new material, we didn’t have a clue what this band would sound like in the 2020s. It was a bit nerve-wracking at first, but after we finished "Missing 13", the first song we wrote for the album, we knew we were onto something. The first single "Ex-Human, Now Beast" has all the energy, power and heaviness we've always loved to create, it's proof we can still rock and we can’t wait for people to hear it!"
About the video: “As soon as I saw the track name, I knew I needed to do a video where one or more of the guys get beastified by a giant tentacled monster,” laughs Peder Bergstrand, director, Lowrider frontman and longtime friend of the band. "The result is a mix of horror, humor, and these relentless animated nightmare sections that I think match the track’s non-stop rocket fuel drum parts really well.”
On their preternaturally confident earliest releases, which included albums In the Tail of the Comet (2000) and Madre De Dios (2001) on the legendary Man’s Ruin label and a split LP with John Garcia’s bright-burning though post-Kyuss outfit Unida, DOZER's fuzz-rock hypnosis was at cosmic levels, thanks to guitarist Tommi Holappa’s rolling riffs and fried psychedelics and singer/guitarist Fredrik Nordin’s blistering vocal power.
The third album Call it Conspiracy was a milestone in perfectly crafted high-energy anthems, as the lockdown grooves of rhythm section Johan Rockner (bass) and Erik Bäckwall (drums) along with heaping helpings of ‘70s hard rock heroics saw the band established as a live force, leveling audiences across the UK and Europe with their white-hot eruptions. Even as DOZER achieved greater recognition on European, US and Australian tours supporting the likes of Clutch, Spiritual Beggars and Mastodon, Holappa also started side project Greenleaf as an outlet for jammier, less-structured digressions.
An inflection point came with Dozer’s fourth album Through the Eyes of Heathens, which saw them drive the intensity into the red and push the tempos to match. Their fuzz-groove attack now infused with heightened aggression and crush, the shift was consecrated by the appearance of Mastodon’s Troy Saunders lending vocals to the song “Until Man Exists No More”. DOZER pushed ahead in this vein with 2008’s Beyond Colossal, which All Music called, “arguably their heaviest and darkest song cycle yet,” and which included a career watermark in the form of mini-epic “Empire’s End” with guest vocals from Neil Fallon of Clutch.
But, although the album was a triumph in channeling the various tributaries of the members’ decade-plus growth and influences, it would also be their last proper album for quite some time. Nordin returned to school for his Master’s degree, Holappa turned Greenleaf into a full-time band, and Dozer went on indefinite hiatus. If the band seemed to sleep while Greenleaf roamed, DOZER have now reawakened by signing a worldwide deal with US label Blues Funeral Recordings, which will release their first studio album in fifteen years.
DOZER is:
Fredrik Nordin - Guitar & Vocals
Tommi Holappa - Guitar
Johan Rockner - Bass
Sebastian Olsson - Drums
DOZER links
Website⎜Facebook⎜Instagram⎜Youtube⎜Spotify
Blues Funeral Recordings links
Website⎮Facebook⎮Bandcamp⎮Instagram | Youtube
