Imagine if you will; a truck - an old bastardized muscle machine, paint scorched by the sun, engine howling with mechanical despair - hurtling down an endless stretch of cracked desert highway. Sandstone buttes and mesas are pockmarking the landscape onto the horizon, while dust roars from the tires and vanishes into the dry wind. There’s a maniac behind the wheel with a left-handed cigarette burned down to the filter. The hula girl on the dash shimmies violently. Lucky dice clatter against the rear-view mirror like old bones. It’s a hundred miles to anywhere and they’re going nowhere. Fast. Sailing to the fiery sunset, to the higher-landed regions, and to the lower verge of supernaut heaven…
This ayahuasca-esque vision must have invaded the brain of a group of Finns at some point (in this case a concoction of Fear and Loathing and the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala - we are a very cultured mag after all.)
This, dear readers, is Kaiser.
Their music is the sound of iron meeting stone, of great storm clouds listing low over darkened desert. In other words, a hell of a lot of fuzz. The seasoned metalhead thinks many things when thinking of metal from Finland. Namely operatic, symphonic, and folky jams - with riddles of fiddles and a crapload of songs about drinking. What they do not think of is what can be branded as “desert doom sludge metal”. This is the equivalent of a band living in the badlands making songs about how they long to be making snow-angels in the tundra. Macabre.
Doom metal is a sub-genre so large and diverse that it can be analysed independently of its mother genre. It has become its own empire, ruling over record store bins and Bandcamp’s trending section with an iron fist. We are currently in something that can be described as the “High-Sabbathian” era. Riffs and tones grow larger and more complex every year as punk and prog influences in equal measure infiltrate the sound, and the amplifiers crush under the weight of the increasingly hazy tones that rattle their mechanical innards. Kaiser seem to fall squarely into the Truckfighters/Kyuss/Fu Manchu area of the doom metal dustbowl. Formed in the fevered humidity of late summer 2013, they are the meeting of Otu, RiQ, and Pex. This monosyllabic trio have been slinging riffs for over a decade in this amalgam, and their newest record aims to melt the ice away. Their first album 1st Sound arrived on this earth in 2018, and now, seven years hence, we have their second full LP; 2nd Sound. Clearly alumni of the Peter Gabriel School of Naming Albums.
The first track 'Brotha' crashes through the gate like a thundering stallion, ranch hands fruitlessly sprinting after it as he bucks his way out of the stable. And brother, that horse is wild. Solid, solid jam. Great performance from Otu, whose voice soars across the vastness of the riff. The tone achieved here stretches throughout the album. It is a warm mix, in fact the mid-dynamic range has all but been swallowed up by the distorted beast that roars throughout. Like 'High Octane Supersoul' before it on 1st Sound, by the end of the song, you’ve got veins in your teeth and blood up to your elbows. Ready to kill.
If 'Brotha' is the wild horse, '1.5 Dozen' is the bandit that rides him. Quite a bouncy jam that would set any live venue alight. 'Meteorhead' begins with a Graveyard-esque movie sample before the beatdown begins. This song is badass, methinks. It’s filled with more attitude than nineties WWE and rumbles low and slow like a Louisiana cookout.
They channel Chris Cornell and Soundgarden on the fourth track 'Oversized Load' (don’t laugh). It’s a heaving, throbbing track that runs thick (DON’T LAUGH) and quietens the pace a bit. The riff nags accusingly, in a sort of neener-neener manoeuvre, whilst Otu continues to belt out like a lost vocal stem from Badmotorfinger. 'Stood Still' is the honorary 'Planet Caravan' of this record. A descant in eastern that sounds like it should be played in a candlelit tavern full of crusaders debating whether God has abandoned them. The vocals are stylistically crushed as RiQ’s drums and pads accentuate the air. Then you have 'Awaken Monster', which channels something similar to early Sergeant Thunderhoof. The opening riff wails like a prehistoric beast caught in tar underpinned by an even heavier riff like a great herd of riffiphants. This track also features a brilliant bass performance from Pex who bellows beneath this song like a slumbering god.
'A Clockwork Green' is as thoughtful and intelligent a composition as anything that was on Sabbath’s Volume 4. There’s genuine feeling here, and a more psychedelic direction until it hurtles back into its breakneck speed, then withdraws back into a more affable outro that mirrors its intro. 'Aftershock' is one hell of a closer. At ten minutes long, it is mammoth-sized, with a mammoth-sized riff to compensate it. It descends slowly with a simple drum and guitar tandem before bursting forth in erratic eruptions. At this moment, the epiphany struck that this album would be absolutely killer to see live. For the non-doom oriented, there is literally no better feeling on planet earth than the guitar riffs literally vibrating in your ribcage. What Kaiser has here is definitely a rib-rattler. Excelsior. At the surcease of aural flagellation, you are left wondering how the hell a band like this has slipped under your radar for so long.
This album is so thick it won’t spread on toast, won’t leak through a sieve, and won’t even submit to desperate sawing of a butterknife on a cold winters morning. It is the cheese on pizza that still sticks to it even when you pull it a metre away. You can quote us on that. Bottom line; it is a very welcome addition to the hallowed halls of the doom-lords, a fine ornament to any stoner rock playlist that would make the casual listener scramble for their Shazam app like a televangelist caught in a brothel raid. They’ve crafted a record that doesn’t just lean on the usual tropes of the genre, but delivers something solid, cohesive, balanced, and heavy without being a mind-numbing slog. While the guitar pedal knobs remain hot-glued down, what you get here is a record that moves with purpose like a fat old lion - one that recognizes how to make a nasty riff stick without bludgeoning you over the head with it for ten straight minutes. Striking that fine balance between mind-melting excess and the kind of taut, honed precision. It’s loud, sure, but it’s also varied enough to keep from feeling like one long and droning wall of sound.
The most solid of stoner rock records, Kaiser come into 2025 a force to be reckoned with. This is a band primed for domination of the UK, and definitely one worthy of a spot at the mighty Desertfest to tremble the venues until the paint chips on the walls and the floorboards disintegrate into pathetic kindling. Kaiser have done something great here that is definitely worth your time, fellow doomers, be sure not to miss this when it releases. To quote from another famous Kaiser ; “Why, man, he doth riff the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty reviewers walk under his huge tone and peep about the amplifier to find ourselves dishonourable graves.”
Score: 8/10
2nd Sound will be released on March 7th 2025 via Majestic Mountain Records.
Words: Kiarash Golshani
Photos: Kaiser
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