Live Reviews

Psych wards

Dead Meadow, Middle East Upstairs, November 20, 2006

By JAMES PARKER | November 28, 2006

SOFT HEAVIES: At their best, Dead Meadow marry the mediævalist echoes of the neo-folkies to the low-end wallop of bong metal.

That Dead Meadow’s Feathers (Sub Pop) was not the mega-sleeper of 2005-2006 is a continuing rebuke to my understanding of the current rock scene. No band, as far as I can tell, more perfectly marries the mediævalist echoes of the neo-folkies to the low-end wallop of bong metal, the ballad to the blood mountain. Their show last spring at Great Scott had the feel of a launch pad for greatness. Huge, confident — all of indie rock seemed poised to swoon beneath the spreading, smoky tapestry of the Dead Meadow experience. And yet here they were, a year and a half later, upstairs at the Middle East.

And looking properly knackered, too, toured half to death. Jason Simon is a wisp of a frontman at the best of times; Monday night he was practically transparent, hanging off his guitar, uncommunicative and subsiding with what looked like relief into wordless caves of reverb. Second guitarist Cory Shane, whose work on Feathers did so much to give it that beautiful headphone shimmer, appears to have left the band. Dead Meadow are now a trio — Simon on guitar/vocals, bassist Steve Kille, and drummer Steve McCarty — and the groove is a touch narrower, with the solos wrapped up more punctually. Simon is an extraordinary player: Tony Iommi being gnawed by sitars. His vocal presence is a retreating thing, made of breath alone; all the storytelling, as it were, is done by his guitar, which seems to rear up into the regions of the epic at his lightest touch. Kille’s bass is an endless melodic rumble, and McCarty puts some real Ginger Baker drag on his drums.

Still, musical abilities aside, this was less than vintage Dead Meadow. Unleavened by inspiration, their patented soft heaviness can feel stodgy, and Simon’s trips into flange and wah-wah like mere diversions. The crowd waited respectfully and supportively to have its collective mind blown. Things finally clicked — which is to say, dreamily dislocated — with “Don’t Tell the Riverman,” and by the time we got to set closer “Sleepy Silver Door,” we were in full H.P. Lovecraft–summoning mode, McCarty pounding out triplets while Simon followed his guitar through fading comet trails. “My forgotten thoughts drop down to the sea/So I lived a life, which was my dream/Can’t find a key to the sleepy silver door/I’m washed up on the shore of reality.”

And now they’re on a mini-tour opening for those pseudo-psych boobs Wolfmother. It’s just not fair.

Related: Musical man, Here’s to you, Colony collapse disorder, More

Topics: Live Reviews , Tony Iommi, Wolfmother, Jason Simon, More

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