Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blooming meadow, 26 Nov 2006
Dead Meadow is one of those rock bands that feels classic -- they love vintage hard-rock and psychedelica, as well as fantasy and horror.
All those elements come into play in their self-titled "Dead Meadow," which has fortunately been rereleased after the success of last year's "Feathers." And this particular nugget of hard rock still has it blurry appeal -- a slow-burning, intense stoner-rock sound, with a psychedelic edge and eerie lyrics.
It opens with a staticky, crackly buzzing noise -- then a foghorn-like bass barges in and starts playing ponderously. The one instrument is so overpowering that I had to turn down the volume -- and the drums came in, breaking up the bludgeoning basslines. There are some murmured lyrics, but they're submerged under the heavy stoner riffs.
Having weeded out the casual, the album careens into the faster, drum-driven "Indian Bones," and the eerie, slightly awkward "Dragonfly," with its slow guitar riffs. Then it's back into dense psych-stoner-rock, which is distorted slightly to give it a surreal edge, and swirling electric guitar solos that blossom out.
There's a brief acoustic interlude -- "At the Edge of the Wood" -- which is just a folky, meandering little melody that lacks the heavy, intense feeling of the other songs. It feels a bit out of place, but is followed up by the tightly-wound, aggressive rhythms of the grand finale, "Rocky Mountain High."
"Dead Meadow" is not the best album that this band has put out -- they were all young at the time, and sometimes the music shows their inexperience. But this is also an album that most bands would be proud to produce. Their knack is in taking what seems like simple stoner rock, and twisting it into an swirling mass of "wah-wah" effects and sprawling proggy noises.
It has a pretty simple instrumental lineup -- Steven Kille plays the blunt, raw basslines, while Mark Laughlin (now no longer with the band) produces drums hard and sharp enough to blast through the foggy music. Jason Simon both plays a nimble guitar, and offers the rather drowned-out vocals that you have to strain to hear.
And their songs are beautifully written, full of nature-lovin' wise men, owls, trees and Native American imagery, like a more scattered Jim Morrison. Their knack for lyrical writing is absolutely exquisite at times ("If the lady of the morning light/Lets her hair flow down/She'd warm the frost covered ground...").
And they even homage pre-Tolkien writer Lord Dunsany, set to the driving rock tune "Beyond the Fields That We Know." It's a pretty eerie song. "Winter winds reach icy hands/into my room/carried away under gleaming/eyes of glowing moon..."
While you can hear Dead Meadow's inexperience in this album, you can also hear their raw talent and blossoming skills. It's solid and thoroughly enjoyable, and only promised better things to come.
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