DEAD MEADOW

When I saw the picture of this trio in the liner notes my reaction was "These guys must still be in high School!" They look like teens with a dog in the photo as well. They recorded this their debut album late in 1999 and everyone talks about the guitar and for good reason. It's the tone, the distortion, the wah-wah we get it all and for sure the guitar stands out and is very impressive. Six of the eight tracks have vocals.

I like the packaging and the picture of this galley going up the river with mountains rising on each side with a castle on one side at the top of that mountain and a dragon on top of the other side. They were are from Washington DC but at some point moved to LA. This is the first of eight studio albums they have released. These guys are so much more than a Stoner rock band but I get how highly they are esteemed in that community and they certainly have played live a lot over the years.

There's a lot of trippy music on here with the distorted guitar being the common denominator. The opener "Sleepy Silver Door" has vocals that brought Stu from KING GIZZARD to mind although it's only on this song I hear that. "Indian Bones" is catchy with the guitar grinding it out over top, vocals too. Neil Young comes to mind with the higher pitched vocals on "At The Edge Of The Wood" as we get a more folky sound with the strummed guitar and not much else.

That closer "Rocky Mountain High" follows that sparse track and benefits from that as a contrast as they hit us with a powerful sound here with plenty of depth. So much fuzz! "Lady" is another great guitar track and he burns it up slowly before 3 minutes. Some energy on this one otherwise. "Beyond The Fields We Know" is the longest at 9 1/2 minutes and features a bass solo and builds from there. Beautiful stuff 6 1/2minutes in. So many good songs on this album including "Greensky Greenlake" where they slow it down but check out the passion 2 minutes in.

A solid 4 star record and I believe their last release was in 2022 so I'm glad they are still making music.