+ Gnod

American hard rock band Dead Meadow formed in 1998 in Washington, D.C. The band rose from the ashes of two young indie DC bands, The Impossible Five and Colour. Their sound combines seventies hard rock and sixties psychedelic rock with themes from authors such as J.R.R Tolkien and H.P Lovecraft.

Dead Meadow released their debut self-titled album in 2000 on Tolotta Records, a label run by Joe Lally of Fugazi. The album immediately established them as masters of creating psychedelic music and hypnotic riffs.

Their sophomore album Howls From The Hills (2001) saw them incorporating influences from eastern music. After the album’s release John Peel requested that the band record a Peel Session and they did so at Fugazi’s home studio, making this the first ever Peel Session to be recorded outside of the BBC studios.

A live album titled Got Live If You Want It was released in mid-2002 documenting one of the last shows with drummer Mark Laughlin (who parted ways with the band in order to pursue a career as a lawyer) The album was produced by Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre.

2003 saw the band sign to Matador Records and release the album Shivering King and Others, which is both bludgeoning and beautiful all at once, crafting vast guitar epics filled with beauty and strangeness.

Feathers was released in 2005, which sees Dead Meadow play an unusual blend of flawless Hendrix/Sabbath riffage, dreamy psych, heavy undulating rhythms, dirty blues-rock with eerie high-pitched vocals.

Early 2008 saw the release of Old Growth, which has the primeval, fuzzed-out power of their earlier albums, but with a new clarity and groove.

Dead Meadow are currently working on a feature length live film and soundtrack titled Three Kings, which spotlights their current stage show along with psychedelic dream scenarios.

Fans of psychedelic music and stoner rock with a progressive and forward thinking attitude should certainly check out Dead Meadow!!

See them perform live at Manchester Academy 3 on Thursday 27th May.

"... this wayward collective take their cues, both musically and spiritually, from the free-range outer edges of Krautrock and spacerock. Within minutes they absorb you, if you let them, into some strange transcendental state best described as a reasonable simulation of the effects of mild hallucinogens....

GNOD

…Amorphous mass of sounds, wibbling analogue keyboards, rattles of drums and handbells, chant-like mantras, until gradually things start emerging like early life-forms from the primordial soup - a rumble of deep dub bass, a heavy beat, and we're off. And instantly transported into some underground Krautrock "happening", where we will be staying for the rest of the evening. One of them wanders around the space in front of the growing crowd, not so much singing as preaching echoey vocal vibes a la Damo Suzuki and occasionally blowing into a melodica as the trip gathers pace..."

- Cath Aubergine, Manchester Music