Dozer are one of those bands.
One of the bands where you say you like them and people say: “oh why have you always got to like such obscure stuff”.
But, the think with Dozer was always this. If you knew, you knew.
I remember I’d picked up on them early, a cd or something on Kerrang, was enough – considering I was already in a severe Monster Magnet phase and was looking for bands that sounded like them.
Dozer did. Kinda. They sounded a bit like Kyuss too. But they also had that Northern European thing. Like, if MM and Kyuss had the American desert, then Dozer had the Swedish cold. Where Dave Wyndorf didn’t want to work a day in his life, then Fredrik Nordin and his mates sounded like a load of grafters.
For ten years and five albums they did some proper bits, and then they disappeared. Last year they re-emerged, with some re-issues, and a record deal.
This amounts, really to something approaching new material, given that they’ve never been physically released before, but in reality “Vultures” is six demos from the sessions that were released digitally in 2013. I didn’t have this website then, so you can read it now instead.
In honesty, you’ll know whether you like this after 15 seconds of “The Blood Is Cold. There’s a huge riff, as dry as dust, then there’s a pounding, and just a little air of mysticism. Then, as is the case for many of them, this is all about the solo.
They soar, Proper rock n roll thunder right here, and there’s more of it on “The Imposter”, don’t worry.
There’s more of the same elsewhere. The chopping riff of “Last Prediction”, and the fact that this is merely a hard rock band when you boil it down. A pinch of AIC here too, but choruses you can’t resist. That’s why they draw the Magnet comparison. “Feels like cutting my own throat” shouldn’t be cheery, somehow it is here.
The slightly sleazy sounded title track might be the best, along with the opener. Real metal too. Proper gallops. Horns up. A thought that “Head Ghosts” takes on, but also with a real fuzzy electricity, as if The Cult have gone to the desert to snort Crystal Meth while looking at the stars.
Olle Mårthans is the type of drummer that treats his kit like he’s caught it stealing, but even for him he beats it to within an inch of its life on “To The Fallen”, while the truly unreleased track here is an enormous sounding cover of Sunride’s “Vinegar Fly.” It sounds primal, yet tuneful, here, and it sounds exactly like a Dozer track.
Hopefully there’ll be new material soon. Until then, revel in the glory of this. And find the back catalogue.
Rating 8.5/10
