Dead Meadow - 'Feathers' (Matador)
4/5
By: Toby L
Dead Meadow aren't music. They're a fog.
And 'Feathers' is their fourth such mist to date, a massive Sabbath mess of grimy, pasty guitars and absolute, intense earnestness. It's so druggy we might just inject into the eyeballs next time.
'Let's Jump In' is the Washington DC foursome's opening invitation, a deluge of layered, crippling Hendrix-isms and distant vocal hollering. 'Such Hawks, Such Hounds', following next, couldn't be further away - it has an actual, pulsing rhythm, and the sort of cautiously searing arpeggios more distinguishable with Thurston Moore or Trail Of Dead; enlaced and embroiled with sliding guitars and completely indiscernible verbal utterances, it's a hypnotic wall-of-sound too ardent to attack.
'Get Up On Down' is yearning smack music, meanwhile, drums virtually caving in on themselves, and guitars more growling and gritty than The Mary Chain. It's by this point that you reach a critical conclusion: either Dead Meadow are the most musically vibrant and soulful force in modern alt today, or the laziest c**ts on the planet. Following the ecstatic, sixties groove and push of 'Heaven', and (genuinely) heart-racing closer 'Through The Gates Of The Sleepy Silver Door' (CS Lewis fans amongst you are salivating, we're sure), we reckon it's quite possible that they're each of these.
But it's a mighty soundtrack to the morning after (the apocalypse), a ballsy and eminent companion to examining and digesting the wreckage; and 'Feathers' is so aloof with its own sense of seclusion that to become part of its solitude is the only path. The nay-sayers: stoner rock. Us: loner rock. When no-one else will, Dead Meadow shall reach out a hand. Take it.
Artists in this article: Dead Meadow
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