Dead Meadow - Shivering King and Others
(Matador)
I've got an idea—in an age where people are content to speak over and over about garage rock revivals and other borderline retreads of that ilk, why not change the rock media's overall mind and convince it that it's time for a major psych-rock revival? I'm talking about all sorts and flavors of the genre from the campfire hippie leanings of the No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand of the Man all the way to the more electric freak-outs of the Acid Mothers Temple and their like-minded friends. Maybe it's because it's been ages since the genre has had a fantastically large number of supporters, or, perhaps, it is due to the fact that those who champion these stylings are largely unorganized. Whatever it is, it would be a breath of fresh air compared to what gets pumped up at the present. Despite other labels fleeing from the thought, it seems that Matador Records is trying to sow the seeds for such a renaissance with their release of Dead Meadow's Shivering King and Others. As much as I wanted this record to be the one that would bring crazy and hard psychedelia and Sabbath-styled musings back to the musical forefront, the album isn't quite the messiah it sets itself out to be. Don't get me wrong—this is some pretty heavy stuff, especially to be the product of a mere three players. It's rare that you see a guitar-bass-drums trio get this down, dirty and heavy these days, especially when the loud and thick nature of the music is the direct result of the players themselves and not just a studio trick. The problem lies in execution.
There are moments on Shivering King and Others that simply rock. The songs that rock bring the goods and hit on all cylinders. These tracks come frequently and with urgency over the first three-fourths of the album. The album kicks off with the lurching "I Love You Too," a song that demonstrates just how excellently these three D.C. area boys can create truly dense songs. From this song you can get the general blueprint that runs throughout much of the rest of the album. You see the focused and intense rock, a very propulsive rhythm section (featuring some very highly-mixed and hard hitting bass—just the sort that gets you nodding you head in time), some effect heavy but tasty guitar riffs and buried vocals (more on this later). "Babbling Flower" follows and kicks the energy and rock quotient on the record up a notch or two and even includes a nice, slower breakdown mid-song. "The Whirlings" starts quickly and has some great riffs. From the first moments of guitar dirtyness that begin "Good Moanin'" to the track's grinding bass lines, the listener has no choice but to be repeatedly slapped around with dense hard rock.
Some of the same power that they exert in these harder rocking songs, the band is just as happy to turn the volume down, accentuate the blues undertones in their music and still retain a high degree of immediacy. "Me and the Devil Blues" takes the form of a heavy blues number that simply is not content until it kicks up the tempo a little bit and rocks out for a little while. Great stuff.
Despite excelling at the louder material, the band has displayed a few weaknesses over the course of their quieter, less intense tracks. Noticeable throughout the entire album are the effect-heavy vocals of Jason Simon. They're kind of whiny and not really that great, even with all of this studio treatment. While this sort of weakness is easy to look past on the hard and rocking songs, when the tempo slows and the electric guitars give way to acoustics, the vocals are pulled more to the forefront and are simply hard to get past. "Shivering King" is an excellent example of this fate. This is a band built to rock out, not be introspective and songs such as this one, "She's Mine," "Heaven" (although when this one is more electric live it works a lot better) and "Raise the Sails." The album is brought down a little bit by the fact that several of these tracks close out the album, bringing the listener down from the high that they felt throughout the rest of the record.
Dead Meadow possesses quite a bit of potential and may just yet champion the psychedelic revolution. Tracks like "Me and the Devil Blues" offer me the hope that they will one day be able to assemble an entire album filled with that sort of urgency and eloquence. While the band itself seems to be content and well prepared for world domination, Shivering King and Others suffers from being improperly assembled. For the band's first record to see wide release to be 62 minutes is overkill, especially when there are three to four songs that could easily be trimmed to produce a leaner, meaner whole. To remove missteps such as the ultra-short tracks or the out of place acoustic numbers would create a cohesively evil rock juggernaut. It is something for the band to keep in mind next time around. Criticism aside, Dead Meadow mark a great entry to the landscape of indie rock and we should all hope that they hang around long enough to give us that one masterful album. You know they have it in them.
|
