Dead Meadow - Old Growth (Matador)
4/5
By: Chris O'Toole
For ten years Dead Meadow have been cruising the highways of America, window wound down, the sun tanning one of their arms as it rests on the door frame - occasionally peaking out from behind their shades. Presidents have come and gone, wars have been fought, won and lost and the world has continued to spin on its axis as it hurtles through space. But not for Dead Meadow. They have remained true to their artistic roots. Nothing will even change in this corner of the world. The group have nourished the same slacker ideal for a decade - taking in cities all over the world with their leisurely, shimmering stoner-rock.
On Old Growth - their fifth album to date - the power-trio has taken stock of all that has come before; all those hazy recollections of places they have seen and people they fleetingly knew - and decided to distil these fine achievements into a single entity. It is almost as though the group has woken from a beautiful dream, and is eager to record their memories before they slide forever into the fog. It is all here. The group's raised on the prairie, detached psyche - allowing them to jam without any concern for the pressures of the modern world - matched to the head nodding, stadium-sized rock. The group are certainly of this world, but seek desperately to get out of it.
The album was recorded in rural Indianan over the course of two weeks, and it is difficult to image the group stopped playing for even a moment. Their charge is relentless - from the first sauntering bars of 'Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)' to the closing 'Either Way', the group rarely let up the emotional and musical intensity. This said there is a great expanse of space on the Old Growth; each note is given space to roll across the mountains and grow to maturity. Ideas come to fruition and slowly erupt in explosions of colour before gradually falling back to earth. For a trio they certainly make a canyon sized noise, and fill every nook and crevice with syrupy, sludge rock - casually strolling to the end of each piece before beginning afresh with the next wandering jam.
Initially this is exhilarating. All the way to 'What Needs Must Be' the group's iconoclastic, hell-bent recklessness makes for a refreshing listen. The group is the embodiment of a teenager's endless summer dream under an azure sky. Guitars sprawl and stretch out to cover the eons and the tone, while maudlin, is cathartic and stimulating. But then, it is as though the drugs begin to wear off, and you realise this really is it. This is not an extended intro, or a deliberate attempt to build a false sense of anticipation. This is what Dead Meadow sound like. This is what they have always sounded like. This is what they will always sound like.
''Till Kingdom Come' is atypical. It's dreamy to the point of narcoleptic. Head nodding to the point of nodding off. It verges on the glut mid-tempo Americana that clogs parents' record collections - indistinguishable, ambling glacier rock. Jason Simon begins sounding like a siren, drawing an adoring, wool-clad, long haired army for miles around, but seems to get lost in his thoughts and forget what message he was supposed to deliver. His voice is cracked emotion, but lacks range - as well as a tune on most occasions - and begins to grind as another piece rides off into the night sky.
All the overdubbing was carried out in LA by Brian Jonestown Massacre alumni Rob Campanella, and features a whole range of bells and whistles. Unfortunately most of these were lost in the thick soupy guitar, and not even the mastering of Howie Weinberg - who previously worked with Nirvana - can inject a sense of urgency. Five albums in Dead Meadow are the same as they have always been, but, sadly, the world is moving on.
Artists in this article: Dead Meadow
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