It’s been a while since Asteroid last made contact with earth. The Swedish heavy-rock trio was fairly active in the aughts, but had not released an album since early 2010. Now they return from an official hiatus with their third record, out on Fuzzorama Records, the indie label run by another Swedish trio you might be familiar with. And hey, with new records from Truckfighters and Asteroid this year, it seems we might have somewhat of a Swedish stoner rock revival on our hands. Anyone hear from Lowrider lately?
Anyhoo, III blasts off with “Pale Moon,” a six-minute number with a rather jazzy intro. After a minute or so, a swirling guitar riff takes flight overtop the proceedings, as they wander into a meandering, mellow instrumental groove—the vocals don’t come in until the 3:20 mark. “Last Days” picks up the pace a lot sooner, getting up to a good gallop with some stop-start riffs, before a spacy, winding instrumental passage takes this one to a close. “Til’ Dawn” sounds more like something offa Graveyard’s last album, a mid-tempo fuzzy blues—but not too fuzzy—while “Wolf & Snake” is better than anything on Truckfighters’ latest, taking some classic Swedish stoner riffs and adding a slower, bluesy element to the mix.
I think that about sums it up; this record is just as good as modern-day Graveyard and Truckfighters, if not better.
www.fuzzoramarecords.com/portfolio/asteroid-iii
