Search - Dead Meadow :: Howls From the Hills (Dig)

Debut Album Gets A Sister

Justin S. Lukenbill | 04/23/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"HOWLS FROM THE HILLS is Dead Meadow's sophomore effort and the second installment of Xemu Records three-part series to re-release the band's earliest outputs. After word-of-mouth got out from 2005's FEATHERS release and pheonominal live shows, original pressings of DM's first two albums skyrockected in price, leaving only the most hardcore of fans to spend approximately $80-100 for a copy.



Recording for HOWLS started just a half year later in a supposedly haunted Indiana barn soon after Dead Meadow's debut was dropped. The overall music for both of these albums are the most related out of the band's four studio releases by being honed in that distinctive dirty Beatles-meets-Sabbath artistry that DM is continuously perfecting.



Singer/guitarist Jason Simon fingers some incredible solos comming off of some great ideas (some original, some borrowed) from like-minded debut. "The White Worm" is absolutley turned on it's head by Simon's guitar right at the 4:46 marker while underscored with a pulsating fuzz bassline. The eight minute "Drifting Downstream" is Dead Meadow's strongest album opener to date, starting with a three minute slow fade-in of meterless primal drumming and wah-washed guitar licks that eventaully cycle into unison and drive the song to a straight forward conclusion. The instrumentaion is sidetracked for "The One I Don't Know" by including congas, sitar and sleigh bells to great psych folk effect. "One And Old" dabbles in Toni Iommi doom and gloom. The rest of HOWLS is rounded up with four minute rockers, one of which "Everything's Going On" is later reprised and extended on 2003's SHIVERING KING album but at a much slower and ambient pace.



Currently DM has broken into significant buzz status amongst under-the-radar appreciation. Thier live shows are comprised almost exclusively with newer material but the sound resembles that of the beginning; the first two sister albums."

So good. So dang good.

J. Rossi | Downers Grove, IL | 05/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"How does a band follow up an album that contained so many great stoned riffs? Do it all again and rejigger the formula (a little bit).



Drifting Down Streams, Jusiamere Farm, The White Worm and One And Old continue in the vein of drawn out bluesy jams, but Dusty Nothing, Everything's Goin' On and The Breeze Always Blows offer some new elements, especially Everything's Goin' On, which gallops by like a long lost Zeppelin b-side. Even to this day, it kills me when Jason Simon sings 'You can't swim in the same river twice' on The Breeze Always Blows.



If you have ever bobbed your head when a fuzzed-out, blues-based song reminiscent of the 60s or 70s blasted out of the stereo, get ready to do so again."