Dead Meadow
Shivering King and Others
[Matador; 2003]
Rating: 7.8
"DR. STEERE!!!" The backhoe shrugged mechanically in the student's hand as she cried out for the professor to come and see what she had forcefully unearthed. Though Steere and his group had been digging in the river basin for the past 30 days, aside from a few common artifacts, the main object of their search continued to elude them.
Taking care to remove the crystallized sludge surrounding the prize, he finally saw it-- the skeletal remains of what appeared to be a musically oriented tribe, known as Dead Meadow, if one followed the stencil on the still half buried drum set, huddled around a central egg-crate of ancient vinyl albums and compact discs. Cataloguing the records to maintain provenience, the dig-team ran into the exact same stratigraphical paradox that Dr. Steere had predicted: in an era of music where fast-paced dance tracks and flashy production techniques ruled, how did it come to pass that a collection like this could have influenced this group of musicians? While it was no surprise to find Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum, Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold As Love, and Led Zeppelin II in the cinched arms of a creature a few meters below Dead Meadow's remains, it was quite a shock that any group of their time was swallowing and potentially outputting this style of music.
A great boon to his research, Dr. Steere soon discovered that atop the assortment of music was a compact disc produced by Dead Meadow themselves, the group's Brendan Canty-engineered third album, Shivering King and Others. Finding an old player he had recently salvaged from an electronics boutique, Steere was eager to hear how well-- if at all-- the group was able to integrate and build upon the work of the late 60s/early 70s, an era they appeared to hold on high.
"I Love You Too" certainly seemed to encapsulate the musical ideals of their inspiration, building upon a heavy Sabbath riff before Jason Simon's nasal vocals threaded deep into the mix with lyrics characteristic of the fantasy-filled air about the band. "Babbling Flower", "Everything's Going On", and "Good Moanin'" exhibited a similar style of stomp-and-circumstance, outfitting their sound with wah-heavy guitar solos worthy of a dirty Dinosaur Jr., and a tinge of far-eastern derived psychedelic rock.
Steere choked back a cry of surprise as the opening chords of "Wayfarers All" heralded the quiet and unexpected onslaught of an acoustic track isolated amidst the growing homogeneity of "The Whirlings" and the meaty drone of "Golden Cloud". The track put together the missing pieces of the band's problematic and massive Neil Young jones, particularly the worn grooves of Zuma. Though incredibly short, the song manages to appropriately prepare the listener for the similar acoustic leanings of "Shivering King", exercising some of the prettiest harmonic ornamentation found on the album. This initially light melodic line is eventually overtaken by an undulating drum pattern and fuzzy-bass that serves as an interesting counterpoint to the introduction of various high-end guitar techniques.
Jaw resting on fist, Dr. Steere grew weary near the end of the composition, nodding off at least twice during the fourteen minutes that comprise the final two tracks "Heaven" and "Raise the Sails". While the sitar sounds of the former and the Sonic Boom-drone of the latter did create an interesting soundscape for the album's climax, the sameness of the music had become irritating after an hour. Steere eventually found himself questioning the group's reasons not to trim some of the excess fat, but he was won over by the consolation that such invariability only further highlighted the musical bond the group has with the virtuosic pomp of its idols.
Weaned on the tenets of "Dinosaur Rock", Dead Meadow does put too much stock in the belief that more truly is more, resulting in drawn-out passages not unlike those that plagued nearly all of the artists they worship. But they succeed in their drive to not merely reproduce but improve, beefing up their sound with influences ranging from post-rock to black-metal, proving that one doesn't need an army of synthesizers and fashion consultants. Dead Meadow embodies the modus behind archaeology: in order to move forward, it's sometimes necessary to look back.
-Andrew Bryant, June 23rd, 2003
Review by Heather Phares
On their third album, Shivering King and Others, Dead Meadow continues to prove that they are one of the most aptly named bands in recent memory, crafting vast guitar epics that have all the beauty and strangeness of a frost-bitten field at midnight. While both their self-titled debut and Howls From the Hills showed power and promise, they were still defined and confined by the heavy influence of forebears such as Zeppelin and Hendrix, as well as by contemporaries such as Bardo Pond. On this album -- which is also their Matador debut -- Dead Meadow seems to have found their own voice and pared their music down until it reflects nothing but their essence. The stunning opener, "I Love You Too," proves this immediately: based on a riff that's equally heavy and haunting, it unfolds over seven minutes, ebbing and flowing with squalling solos and Jason Simon's moody, reverb-cloaked vocals. Fortunately, the rest of the album follows suit, offering relatively concise, powerful rockers like "Bubbling Flower" and the title track; eerie, slow-burning ballads like "Everything's Going On" (which appears in a dramatically different form than it did on Howls From the Hills) and "Wayfarers All"; and chiming acoustic numbers like "Heaven" and "Good Moanin'." That the bulk of Shivering King and Others finds Dead Meadow operating in one of these three modes is far from disappointing, though, since the band's ideas and execution have come such a long way in just a few years. A certain spooky sleekness winds its way through even the album's most scorching rockers, coming to the fore on brief cuts like "She's Mine" and more expansive ones like the finale, "Raise the Sails." Bludgeoning and beautiful all at once, Shivering King and Others is Dead Meadow's finest work to date and the album that their fans always knew they had it in them to make.
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