Dead Meadow
Feathers
[Matador; 2005]
Rating: 8.0
Oh, so Santa Cruz is Freak City, right? And Vancouver is kooky as all hell. And L.A. And Brooklyn. Palm Desert got acid rock on lock. And D.C. No? D.C. is fucking Fugazi, man. D.C. is Bad Brains. Dismemberment Plan. Jawbox. Ginuwine. How can a city of Banana Republican pencil-pushers even hope to compete in such a heated psych-rock market? Here's how:
* The mayor was filmed smoking crack with a hooker, and was still re-elected after he did his six-month bid.
* There is a GIANT PHALLUS poking out of the ground across the street from the president's house.
* The basketball franchise's mascot is a Cubist Wizard.
* Rock Creek Park, a lush valley winding through the city, is a great place to hide dead bodies.
* Mk-Ultra
* Tranny Hoover
* Reflecting Pool
There may not be a stranger city on Earth, which is why a band like Dead Meadow existing in the District is not at all surprising. With their fourth album, Feathers, Dead Meadow add another guitarist and venture further outside their 60s influences to create a spacious, hypnotic album that distinguishes them from their stoner- and psych-rock contemporaries.
Dead Meadow owes considerable debts to Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Blue Cheer, among others, and the band has always provided a reminder that music like theirs ditched reality in favor of vespertine seances and distorted idylls. Feathers, though, takes those same influences and strains them through shoegaze standards like Ride's Nowhere and the Verve's A Storm in Heaven, augmenting the sludge with gauzy melodies.
On previous albums, singer-guitarist Jason Simon seemed to get caught up in his own riffs, a tendency often found in the dubiously conglomerated stoner rock sub-genre. Whether the presence of new guitarist Cory Shane provoked the change or not, Simon is more willing to loose his grip on his guitar, as evidenced on the extended silences on opener "Let's Jump In" and the ebb and flow of "Get Up On Down". If the riff death grip is what you're into, don't worry. "Untitled" is a 13-plus-minute ogre that will stomp the shit out of your crappy computer speakers. Its path is cleared by the curious "Through The Gates Of The Sleepy Silver Door", a drum-pummeling of Yoshimi proportions that scrubs any coherent thought you might be having at the time of listening.
The other big change on Feathers is Simon's voice. In the past, his nasal whine could grate if it weren't completely drowned out by a slight turn of the volume. "At Her Open Door", a slide guitar ramble that leaves plenty of room for Simon's singing, illustrates the subtle alteration. His relaxed delivery is a about an octave lower than normal, and it actually sounds like he's able to force air through his nostrils. "Stacy's Song" is an even greater improvement, slapping a bit of echo on Simon's breathy meanderings, which are downright manly.
Feathers may not have the heft of Dead Meadow's other albums, but it's easily its most listenable and satisfying from end to end. Along with the mountaintop bellowing of Comets On Fire and the riverside rollicking of Black Mountain, Dead Meadow have established themselves nicely as the bookish Tolkein fellows wandering the forest of the mystical neo-psych hinterland. Look at all that nature! Comets on the mountains, mountains by the river, and meadows in the forest...so pretty. Dead Meadow may not inspire the kids at Ft. Reno like Fugazi. They probably won't keep white folks clutching their spouses like Bad Brains. But I'll be damned if they don't do a fine job of updating the kind of music that made G-Dubs nauseous as a college student, and that's really all you can ask of a band from D.C.
-Peter Macia, March 3, 2005
