A friendly reminder that the end of the week is not, in fact, the end of the Quarterly Review, which will continue through Monday and Tuesday. That brings the number of releases covered to 70 total, which feels like plenty, and should hopefully carry us through a busy Spring release season. I’m thinking June for the next QR now but don’t be surprised if that turns into July as we get closer. All I know is I wanna do it before it’s two full weeks again.

As always, I hope you’ve found something that speaks to you in all this 10-per-day nonsense. If not, first, wow, really? Second, it ain’t over yet. Maybe today’s your day. One way to know.

Quarterly Review #41-50:

Dead Meadow, Voyager to Voyager

You may be mellow-vibes, but unless you’re “Not the Season,” Dead Meadow have one up on you forever. While Voyager to Voyager, which is the L.A. band’s eighth or ninth LP depending on what you count, comes with the tragic real-world context of bassist Steve Kille‘s 2024 passing, he does feature on the long-running trio’s first offering through Heavy Psych Sounds, and whether it’s “The Space Between” or the shuffle-stepping “The Unhounded Now” or the pastoral “A Question of Will” and the jangly strum of “Small Acts of Kindness” later on, guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon, Kille and drummer Mark Laughlin celebrate the ultra-languid take on heavy, psychedelic and shoegazing rock that’s made Dead Meadow a household name for weirdos. Not that they’re not prone to a certain wistfulness, but Voyager to Voyager is vibrant rather than mournful, and the title-track is an album flow unto itself in just eight minutes. If you can slow your manic-ass brain long enough to sit and hear it front-to-back, you’re in for a treat.

Dead Meadow website

Heavy Psych Sounds website

—

Seán Mulrooney, This is My Prayer

There is a sense of stepping out as Irish troubadour Seán Mulrooney makes his full-length solo debut with This is My Prayer on Ómós Records. Mulrooney is best known for residing at the core of Tau and the Drones of Praise, and for sure, pieces of This is My Prayer are coming from a similar place, but where there was psychedelic meander for the band, under his own moniker, Mulrooney brings a clarity of tone and presence to lyrics ranging from spiritual seeking to what seems to have been an unceremonious breakup. With character and emotion in his voice and range in his craft, Mulrooney sees a better world on “Ag Múscliaghacht” and posits a new masculinity — totally needed; trainwreck gender — in “Walking With the Wind,” meets indie simplicity with lap steel in “Jaguar Dreams” and, in closer “The Pufferfish,” pens a fun McCartney-style bouncer about tripping sea life. These are slivers of the adventures undertaken in singer-songwriter style as Mulrooney hones this solo identity. Very curious to see where the adventure might take him.

Seán Mulrooney on Bandcamp

Ómós Records website

—

MaidaVale, Sun Dog

Issued in 2024, Sun Dog is the third MaidaVale long-player, and with it, the Swedish heavy psychedelic rockers showcase six years’ worth of growth from their second album. Melancholic of mood in “Fools” and “Control” and the folkish “Alla Dagar” and “Vultures,” Sun Dog starts uptempo with the Afrobeat-influenced “Faces,” drifts, shreds, then drifts again in “Give Me Your Attention,” dares toward pop in “Daybreak” and fosters a sense of the ironic in “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Pretty Places,” the latter of which, with a keyboardier arrangement, could’ve been the kind of New Wave hit that would still be in your head 40 years later. The nine-songer (10 if you get “Perplexity,” which was previously only on the vinyl) doesn’t dwell in any single space for too long — only “Wide Smile is Fine” and “Vultures” are over four minutes, though others are close — and that lets them balance the downer aspects with forward momentum. MaidaVale are no strangers to that kind of movement, of course, but Sun Dog‘s mature realization of their sound feels so much more vast in range.

MaidaVale website

Silver Dagger Records website

—

Causa Sui, Loppen 2024

Here come Causa Sui with another live album. And I’m not saying the only reason the thankfully-prolific Danish psychedelic treasures, heavyjazz innovators and El Paraiso label honchos are only releasing a complement to 2023’s Loppen 2021 (review here) to rub in the fact that I’ve never been lucky enough to catch them on a stage — any stage — but I am starting to take it personally. Call me sensitive. In any case, despite feeling existentially mocked by their chemistry and the fluidity of “Sorcerer’s Disciple” or the 22-minute “Visions of a New Horizon,” the hour-long set is glorious as one would expect, and though Loppen 2024 is a blip on the way to Causa Sui‘s forthcoming studio album, In Flux, especially when set alongside their previous outing from the same Christiania-based venue, it highlights the variable persona of the band and the reach of their material. Someday I’ll see this goddamn band.

Causa Sui’s Linktr.ee

El Paraiso Records website

—

Fulanno, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo

Underlying the grit and stoner drawl of “El Rey del Mundo de los Muertos” is the lurching progression of Black Sabbath‘s “Sweet Leaf,” and that reinterprative ethic comes to the strutting Pentagrammery of “La Verdad es Tu Ataud” as well, but in the tonal density and the way their groove snails its way into your ear canal, the vibe Fulanno bring to Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo is in line with stoner doom traditionalism, and the revelry is palbale in the slow nod of the title-track or the horror samples sprinkled throughout or the earlier Electric Wizard-style languidity of “El Nacimiento de la Muerte.” They save an acoustic stretch in reserve to wrap “Desde las Tinieblas,” but if you think that’s going to clean your soul by that point then you haven’t been paying attention. Unrepentantly dark, stoned and laced with devil-, death-and riff-worship, Nosotros Somos el Fin del Mundo further distinguishes Fulanno in an always crowded Argentinian underground, and dooms like a bastard besides.

Fulanno on Bandcamp

Interstellar Smoke Records store

Smolder Brains Records on Bandcamp

Ruidoteka Records’ Linktr.ee

—

Ze Stoner, Desert Buddhist

Because the age we live in permits such a thing and it tells you something about the music, I’m going to cut and paste the credits for Israeli duo Ze Stoner‘s debut EP/demo, Desert Buddhist. Dor Sarussi is credited with “bass guitar, spaceships, vocals,” while Alexander Krivinski handles “didgeridoo, spaceships, drums, and percussion.” How tripped out does a band need to be to have two members credited with “spaceships,” you ask? Quite tripped out indeed. Across the 12:09 “Part I – The Awakness” (sic) and the 11:41 “Part II – The Trip,” and the much-shorter 1:41 finale “Part III – The Enlightenment,” Ze Stoner take the meditative doom of Om or an outfit like Zaum and extrapolate from it a drone-based approach that retains a meditative character. It is extreme in its capacity to induce a trance, and as Desert Buddhist unfolds, it plays as longer movements tied together as a single work. There is massive potential here. One hopes Sarussi, Krivinski, their spaceships and didgeridoo are just beginning their adventures in the cosmos.

Ze Stoner on Bandcamp

—

Arv, Curse & Courage

Oslo-based newcomers Arv aren’t shy about what their sound is trying to do. Their debut album, Curse & Courage, arrives via the wheelhouse of Vinter Records and brings together noise-laced and at-times-caustic hardcore with the atmospherics, echoing tremolo and churning intensity of post-metal. They lean to one side or the other throughout, and “Wrath” seems to get a bit of everything, but it’s a harder line to draw than one might think because hardcore as a style is all urgency and post-metal very often brings a more patient take. Being able to find a place in songwriting between the two, well, Arv aren’t the first to do it, but they are impressively cohesive for Curse & Courage being their first record, and the likes of “Victim,” the overwhelming rush of “Forsaken” earlier on and the more-ambient-but-still-vocally-harsh closing title-track set up multiple avenues for future evolution of the ideas they present here. Too aggressive to be universal in its appeal, but makes undeniable use of its scathe.

Arv website

Vinter Records website

—

Fvzz Popvli, Melting Pop

I’m not sure what’s going on in “Erotik Fvel P.I.M.P.,” but there’s chicanery a-plenty throughout Fvzz Popvli‘s fourth full-length, Melting Pop, which is released in renewed cooperation with Heavy Psych Sounds. Hooks, fuzz, and the notion that anything else would be superfluous pervade the Indiana Jones-referencing “Temple of Doom” and “Telephone” at the outset, the latter with some choice backing vocals, and they kick the fuzz into overdrive on “Salty Biscvits” with room besides for a jangly verse. Running an ultra-manageable 30 minutes, the album breaks in half with four songs on each side. “Kommando” leads off the second half with dirtier low end tone ahead of the slower-rolling “Ovija,” which shouts and howls and is all kinds of righteously unruly, where “Cop Sacher” punks at the start and has both gang vocals and a saxophone, which I can say with confidence nothing else among the 70 records in this Quarterly Review even tried let alone pulled off, and they close with due swagger and surprising class in “The Knight.” Part of Fvzz Popvli‘s persona to this point has been based in rawness, so it’s interesting to hear them fleshing out more complex arrangments, but at heart they remain very much stoner rock for the glory of stoner rock.

Fvzz Popvli on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

—

Rust Bucket, Rust Bucket

The tone worship is there, the working-class-dude stoner swing is there, and the humor that might result in a song like “Hypertension” — for which no less than Bob Balch of Fu Manchu sits in — so when I compare Rust Bucket to Maryland’s lost sons Earthride, please know that I’m not talking out of my ass. The Minnesota-based double-guitar five-piece revel in low end buzz-tone, and with no-pretense groove, throaty vocals and big personality, that spirit is there. Doesn’t account for the boogie of “Keep Us Down,” but everybody’s gotta throw down now and then. They shift into a sludgier mood by the time they get around to “The Darkness” and “Watch Your Back,” but the idea behind this first Rust Bucket feels much more like a bunch of guys getting together to hammer out some cool songs, maybe play some shows, do a record and see how it goes. On paper, that makes Rust Bucket an unassuming start, but its anti-bullshit stance, steady roll and addled swing make it a gem of the oldschool variety. Much to their credit, they call the style, “fuzzy caveman dad rock.” They forgot ‘bearded,’ but otherwise that about sums it up. Maybe the beard is implied?

Rust Bucket on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

—

Mountain Dust, Mountain Dust

It is appropriate that Mountain Dust named their third LP after themselves, since it finds them transcending their influences and honing a cross-genre approach that’s never sounded more their own than it does in these nine songs. From the densely-weighted misdirect of “Reap” with its Earth-sounding drone riff through the boogieing en route to the mellower and more open soul-showcase “Waiting for Days to End” — backing vocals included, see also “It’s Already Done” on side B — and the organ in “Vengeance,” the dynamic between the Graveyard-style ballad “This is It” and the keyboard/synth-fueled instrumental outro “All Eyes But Two,” Mountain Dust gracefullly subverts retroist expectations with individualized songwriting, performance and production, and this material solidifies the Montreal four-piece among the more flexible acts doing anything in the sphere of 1970s-style heavy rock. That’s still there, understand, but like the genre itself, Mountain Dust have very clearly grown outward from their foundations.

Mountain Dust website

Mountain Dust on Bandcamp

—

Last week, Esbjerg Fuzztival set forth on a series of weekly lineup additions by adding Danish heavy psych forerunners to the bill, and today they follow that rather substantial happening by announcing that Dead Meadow will headline. The Californian outfit will be on tour in Europe supporting their upcoming album, Voyager to Voyager, which is out March 28 through Heavy Psych Sounds. And as Dead Meadow have been previously confirmed for Freak Valley Festival in Germany, which happens June 19-21, two weeks after Esbjerg Fuzztival, it seems likely they’ll spend at least a substantial part of June on the road. Fair enough. The new single “The Space Between” is below, and I hope to have more on the record — like a review, I mean — before it’s out.

Esbjerg Fuzztival 2025, meanwhile, I expect will be back next Friday with another name to drop for its bill, which in addition to Dead Meadow and Causa Sui includes Wyatt E., Daily Thompson, Karkara, Daevar, Dunes, Skyjoggers, Green Milk From the Planet Orange, Aptera, Djinn, the house band Vestjysk Ørken, and yes I did just cut and past that from the last post. It doesn’t make it less true, and among the crowded sphere of European festivals, you can see Esbjerg Fuzztival developing over the last several years its niche in heavy psychedelia and a range of jammy, heavy or trippy sounds. Dead Meadow can fit with any of it, so could hardly be more fitting to headline.

From social media:

ESBJERG FUZZTIVAL 2025 – Dead Meadow

Headlining Friday night at Fuzztival 25 we have Dead Meadow (Official) the American Heavy Psych pioneers! For nearly 30 years this is a band that have continued to push boundaries and set the gold standard for other bands to follow. We never thought the day would come where we would be able to present Dead Meadow – one of our all time favourite bands!

https://www.facebook.com/esbjergfuzztival/
https://www.instagram.com/esbjerg_fuzztival/
https://www.fuzztival.com/

Dead Meadow, “The Space Between”

The inevitable story of Dead Meadow‘s upcoming full-length, Voyager to Voyager, is that it will be the long-running heavy psych/gaze rockers’ last with bassist Steve Kille, whose health was reportedly already in decline when the recording was made and who passed away earlier this year. The band, with guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon and drummer Mark Laughlin, have not announced who, if anyone, will be handling low end when they take to the stage — they were recently confirmed for Freak Valley and will likely have other plans besides — but the new label, new record, live bookings and the streaming single “The Space Between” certainly answer the question of their future.

There’s some noteworthy tension early in the seven-minute opening cut from Voyager to Voyager, and it gets a payoff that’s certainly earned and feels purposeful from a songwriting standpoint, but the overarching impression remains Dead Meadow in its languidity and in Simon‘s calm, melodic vocal searching. The band’s last studio release was the PostWax/Blues Funeral experimentalist work Force From Free (discussed here), and this will be their first offering through Heavy Psych Sounds.

You probably already saw this. I don’t care. I want it here because it’s relevant and for my own future reference, so it’s here. From the PR wire:

DEAD MEADOW share first single off new album “Voyager To Voyager”; out March 28th on Heavy Psych Sounds

US heavy psychedelic rock luminaries DEAD MEADOW present their new single “The Space Between”, taken from their upcoming tenth studio album and final recording with late bassist Steve Kille. “Voyager To Voyager” will be released worldwide on March 28th and available to preorder now through Heavy Psych Sounds Records.

Dead Meadow’s highly anticipated tenth studio album Voyager to Voyager marks a defining moment in their illustrious 26-year journey. Revered as a pioneering force in the heavy psychedelic rock scene since their formation in the late ’90s, the band delivers not only their most emotionally charged and sonically expansive album to date but also a powerful tribute to their brother, late bassist Steve Kille, whose battle against cancer and untimely passing in early 2024 has made it the poignant end of a chapter in the band’s history.

“The Space Between” is the opening track on the band’s most compositionally eclectic and sonically adventurous album to date. The song opens with thirty seconds of droning synth strings, underpinned by a haunting four-note synthesizer melody, building to an anxious crescendo. Jason Simon’s vocals — dark and compelling, the inimitable phrasing instantly recognizable — are put to the service of lyrics exploring interstellar themes and imagery; the dance of matter and anti-matter, expansion by negation, emptiness seething with activity, the expanding Universe and the space in-between.

While the song traffics in the heavy riff-rock that has always been the band’s musical grounding, “The Space Between” adds a jazzy, prog-rock sophistication that suggests new directions for the band, perhaps a portal opening in the space-time continuum that is the Dead Meadow Universe. In the song’s final movement, Simon introduces guitar harmonies that conjure up the best of Deep Purple and Iron Maiden, before unleashing a positively kaleidoscopic guitar solo that ranks with his very best. The song ends with layers of guitar riffs peaking like exclamation points and inviting the listener into the deep end of Dead Meadow’s latest invention.

New album “Voyager To Voyager”
Out March 28th, 2025 on Heavy Psych Sounds – Preorder: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/

TRACKLIST:
1. The Space Between
2. Not The Season
3. The Unhounded Now
4. A Wave Away
5. A Question of Will
6. Dead Tree Shake
7. Small Acts of Kindness
8. Voyager to Voyager

Written and recorded across three intense sessions in downtown LA’s Ultrasound Studios, Voyager to Voyager perfectly encapsulates Dead Meadow’s raw energy and creative chemistry. During the sessions, the band worked quickly, using only the first or second take to preserve the immediacy found in their live show, with drummer Mark Laughlin delivering some of his best performances to date.

Its creation, however, was shaped by personal hardship. In early 2023, the trio began writing and recording, but it wasn’t until later that year that bassist Steve Kille’s health began to decline. In January 2024, just weeks before the final tracking sessions, he was diagnosed with cancer but remained steadfast, fueling the band’s resolve to stay on course and finish the album. As they entered Dave Grohl’s legendary Studio 606 to mix the record, Steve’s health continued to deteriorate, yet his creative influence and presence were felt throughout the process, even as he was confined to a couch during the final mixing sessions. However, the final mixes didn’t quite capture the magic they had hoped for. Guitarist and vocalist Jason Simon reflects, “The famed Sound City Neve board did impart a certain mojo but jumping into an unfamiliar space can be tricky and some of the mixes didn’t feel quite right. So I decided to start over, mixing the record at my own studio. The task was herculean, but in the end the new mixes felt like they should, like classic Dead Meadow. I’m really happy with how each song turned out, and I know Steve would agree.”

The result is an album that is unmistakably Dead Meadow: expansive, melody-driven, and deeply rooted in their unique sound — one that honors both their roots and the cosmic imagery that defines Voyager to Voyager. Lyrically, the album delves into themes of space, isolation, and human connection, with the opening track, “The Space Between,” drawing from the theory of the universe’s continual expansion as a metaphor for strained relationships. The title track “Voyager to Voyager” reflects Simon’s fascination with the two Voyager spacecrafts — humanity’s farthest traveling creation, now venturing into interstellar space as well as representing a message between travelers, an understanding shared between those who have embarked on a genuine journey, whether together or apart.

Steve Kille’s passing in April 2024 has made this whole album all the more meaningful. “We’ve lost a bandmate, a brother, a friend, and a creative partner on this voyage of 26 years as Dead Meadow,” Simon says. “We are so very thankful to have this LP of new material, as Steve laid down his final bass line shortly before he became too sick to really play.” While Voyager to Voyager is anything but a tribute album, it does ultimately stand as a celebration of Kille’s immeasurable legacy. His unique and endlessly creative bass playing helped shape Dead Meadow’s sound while his singular artistic vision created iconic album covers and defined the band’s visual identity.

With Voyager to Voyager, Dead Meadow once again affirms their place in the pantheon of modern psych rock by pushing their sound to new heights, all the while honoring the deep creative bond they have shared through nearly three decades of melting minds worldwide… and perhaps even beyond that time and space continuum. The end of a chapter and a cosmic journey we shall embrace fully.

DEAD MEADOW is
Jason Simon – vocals, guitars
Steve Kille – bass
Mark Laughlin – drums

https://www.facebook.com/DeadMeadowOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/thedeadmeadow/
https://deadmeadow.bandcamp.com/
http://www.deadmeadow.com/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/

Dead Meadow, “The Space Between”

In the interest of honesty, I’ll admit to tearing up a bit when I saw My Sleeping Karma would be playing Freak Valley in 2025. That’s a band I’ve listened to for 20 years, whom I’ve never seen, and who will be making their return to the stage this weekend as they play their first show since the passing of drummer Steffen Weigand in June 2023. Already I had very much hoped to be at Freak Valley next year — it would be my fourth in a row and it is a continual honor to be invited — but I think this pushes it to what social media might classify as a ‘life event.’ To think I might in a mere matter of months be ‘marked safe’ from never having seen My Sleeping Karma. If you need me, I’ll be daydreaming about standing in that photo pit when the music starts.

That’s not to discount Dead Meadow or Motorpsycho, certainly, or Sarkh, The Polvos! or The Thing — the latter are new to me as of this writeup, despite relative geographic proximity — just excited on a personal level. Fingers crossed I get to be there — as a policy, I never believe it all the way until I’m on the plane — for all of it. I did write the short announcement below (emojis and final line added later) and it went up last week, but I’m behind on stuff with the holiday, so forgive. The fest is sold out, as usual.

Here’s the latest:

Freaks,

From the bottoms of our freaky hearts, thank you for once again making Freak Valley Festival completely sold out. 💯

We haven’t finished with 2025 yet, though. Today brings six new additions to the lineup:

⚡Motorpsycho⚡
⚡Dead Meadow⚡
⚡My Sleeping Karma⚡
⚡The Thing⚡
⚡The Polvos!⚡
⚡Sarkh⚡

Of course, Norway’s heavy prog legends MOTORPSYCHO need no introduction. They’ll probably have three or four new albums out by June.

DEAD MEADOW will be touring on their upcoming album ‘Voyager to Voyager,’ making an emotional return to the stage.

We consider MY SLEEPING KARMA family, and their return to Freak Valley is a rightly anticipated reason to celebrate. It is an honor to host them as they also return to the stage in 2025 for a busy and emotional time. ❤️

We also welcome hard-driving New York garage rockers THE THING, Chilean cosmic fuzzlaunchers THE POLVOS!, and atmospheric progressive metal instrumentalists SARKH to the lineup for next June.

We look forward to welcoming you too. More to come early in the New Year.

We wish you a Heavy Christmas and a Fuzzy New Year

https://www.facebook.com/freakvalley
https://www.instagram.com/freakvalleyfestival/
http://www.rockfreaks.de/
http://www.freakvalley.de/

Dead Meadow, “The Space Between”

There’s a lot of info below, but the parts you really need first are there in caps: Dead Meadow have signed to Heavy Psych Sounds. That means a new album is on the way — the band’s last studio release was Force From Free in 2022 through Blues Funeral Recordings — as well as a new EP, some catalog reissues and back-album sales. The new LP goes up for preorder next week. That’s the long and short of it.

Whatever it’s called, the next Dead Meadow will be a bittersweet advent in light the passing of bassist Steve Kille earlier this year. The good news is Kille played on the recordings and so the album can be issued in a spirit of tribute to his contributions to the band, which along with guitarist/vocalist Jason Simon and drummer Mark Laughlin, resulted in a psych-gaze sound the influence of which has only grown in recent years.

January or February release? Probably. It’d be a hell of a start to Heavy Psych Sounds‘ year, but we’ll probably find out more in a couple weeks when the preorders start, unless there’s another announcement between now and then leaking out some detail or other of what to expect.

From the PR wire:

We’re really stoked to announce that the US psychedelic rock legends DEAD MEADOW are now part of the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Family !!!

“We are really honored to welcome such an incredible band in our roster. We touched base for the first time in 2021 with Dead Meadow bass player Steve and the feelings were great from the first moment. We were devastated when he passed away early this year. We decided to continue the work with Jason and we are sure this collaboration will be very fruitful.”

Here’s what you can expect coming out in the next months:

BRAND NEW FULL LENGTH SINCE 2018 “The Nothing They Need”
BRAND NEW EP
REISSUING PART OF THE DISCOGRAPHY IN NEW COLOURED VINYLS
ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY AVAILABLE FROM HPS WEBSITE

PRESALE OF THE NEW ALBUM: WILL START IN DECEMBER 2024

SAYS THE BAND

“We are happy to announce that an all new Dead Meadow LP will be released early next year on the one and only Heavy Psych Sounds Records. Steve, Mark, and I had been working on this record throughout 2023, finishing and tracking the final songs in January of this year. We are excited and extremely thankful to have an entire record featuring Steve’s bass and creative influence to still share with the world.”

BIOGRAPHY

Dead Meadow’s unique marriage of Sabbath riffs, dreamy layers of guitar-fuzz bliss, and singer Jason Simon’s melodic croon have won over psychedelic pop/rock and stoner rock fans alike. Although the band’s members met while attending all-ages shows in and around Washington, D.C.’s punk/indie scene, the trio draws more of its sound from such classic rock legends as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. The trio formed in the fall of 1998 with singer/guitarist Simon, bassist Steve Kille, and drummer Mark Laughlin. The three members set out to fuse their love of early-’70s hard rock and ’60s psychedelia into their distinct sound.

They released their eight song debut album in 1999. Within a relatively short period, the D.C. trio received offers to tour with everyone from local D.C. acts like The Make-Up and Fugazi to psychedelic rockers Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The much acclaimed debut was quickly followed by 2001’s “Howls from the Hills”, recorded at friend Stephen McCarty’s (who would later join Dead Meadow) grandparent’s farm house in rural Indiana and also released on Tolotta Records.

The band signed with Matador Records in early 2003 and released “Shivering King and Others”. Along with the heavy feel and blues-influenced songs, as found on the previous two records, the band incorporated a more layered and dense sound, and continued in their psychedelic style.

With the addition of long time friend Cory Shane as second guitarist, the band released the much acclaimed “Feathers” LP in 2005 on Matador Records. This record incorporated the heavy sound of Dead Meadow with a somewhat more dreamlike feel and included a great deal of two guitar interplay between Cory and Jason.

2007 saw the band reverting back to a three piece and relocating from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, CA. “Old Growth”, the fifth studio album was released in 2008 on Matador Records.

In 2010 Dead Meadow released a feature length live film and soundtrack, “Three Kings”, that spotlighted their live show and included psychedelic dream sequences that follow a loose storyline.

Stephen McCarty left the band and original drummer Mark Laughlin returned. The group spent a long, patient time self-producing and recording 2013’s epic double-album-length release “Warble Womb”, also released on Xemu records.

With the release of the LP “The Nothing they Need” in 2018, Steve and Jason celebrate twenty years of Dead Meadow with eight songs that feature everyone that has been musically involved with the band over the years.

The Lockdown of 2020 gave the band some much needed rest from touring though two live records were released.

Throughout 2023 Dead Meadow performed sporadically and began work on a new full length LP for Heavy Psych Sounds Records. The band completed tracking the record in January of 2024 shortly after finding out the terrible news that bass player Steve Kille had been diagnosed with Cancer. Though he began Chemo within a month or so the cancer had progressed too far and was too aggressive to be stopped. Steve Kille passed away on April 14th, 2024 leaving an incredible legacy of utterly unique bass playing, a singular artistic vision, and boundless creativity. Band members, friends, and fans alike were devastated but the outpouring of love for Steve as a musician, friend, and amazing human being was a beautiful thing to see.

The upcoming Heavy Psych Sounds LP was entirely written and recorded with Steve at full capacity and band is incredibly thankful to have an entire new record to still share with the world.

https://www.facebook.com/DeadMeadowOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/thedeadmeadow/
https://deadmeadow.bandcamp.com/
http://www.deadmeadow.com/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/

Dead Meadow, I Found the Key (2024)

On April 18, Los Angeles-based mellow-heavy/shoegaze fuzz psych rockers (and then some) Dead Meadow announced that bassist Steve Kille had died the night before. Here’s the text of that post:

It is with the absolutely heaviest of hearts that we have to announce our beloved brother, bandmate, amazing and utterly unique bass player, and gifted artist Steve Kille passed away at 12 am last night. Writing, recording, performing music with Steve felt as fresh; inspiring, and as important as it did 27 years ago when we first started playing together. We don’t know what words could express this level of loss.

That of course is guitarist/vocalist and fellow founding member Jason Simon paying tribute.His math puts the start of Dead Meadow in 1997 at which point the band was still located in Washington D.C. Their first album, 2000’s Dead Meadow (discussed here), was released through Joe Lally of Fugazi‘s label, Tolotta Records — see also: Spirit Caravan, Stinking Lizaveta, Orthrelm (w/ Mick Barr), and so on — and Howls From the Hills followed the next year, once again on Tolotta and once again with Kille‘s art and design complementing the music.

Got Live if You Want It would follow in 2002 (on Bomp! and The Committee to Keep Music Evil), and the trio were signed to Matador Records ahead of 2003’s third studio album Shivering King and Others, but there’s a resonant rawness to the first two records that can only come from a band getting their feet under them and discovering who they are sonically. In that regard, the languid unfolding, wah-drenched fuzz tones and warm groove of “Drifting Down Streams” for sure learned some lessons from the self-titled. Recorded in Indiana by Shelby Cinca at a farm owned by the family of Stephen McCarty, who’d play drums on their fourth and fifth LPs, 2005’s Feathers and 2008’s Old Growth — also the era that saw Kille‘s emergence as a producer and recording engineer for the band — Howls From the Hills was ahead of its time in both the saunter of “Dusty Nothing” and the punctuated slow swing of “Jusiamere Farm,” and while I don’t have a negative word to say about Simon‘s tone or characteristic semi-sneering vocals or the urge-toward-movement that Mark Laughlin‘s drumming brings to the later “Everything’s Goin’ On,” it has always been Kille‘s bass work underneath Simon‘s higher-end fuzz that makes Howls From the Hills such a headphone-worthy listen.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the stoned-in-the-summer-sun hook of “The White Worm” or caught in the feedback wash ahead of the Sabbathian march of “One and Old,” which becomes a classic-style outbound-jam departure before its 9:45 runtime is halfway through, getting louder, getting quieter, ebbing but always flowing before Simon brings it down with wistful but calming lead guitar over the last minute-plus. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the ’50s shimmer of the slide-inclusive “The Breeze Always Blows” or the sitar-backed bedroom folk ramble of “The One I Don’t Know” — which may or may not even have bass — Howls From the Hills highlights the particular fluidity that set Dead Meadow apart from most if not all of the turn-of-the-century-era heavy rockers, their willingness to let go of aggression where so many others couldn’t or didn’t want to, and the chemistry that was taking shape in their sound.

The last time I saw Kille play live was at the third night of Desertfest New York in May 2022 (review here), where Dead Meadow played the main stage between Big Business and the first of the evening’s headliners, Red Fang. You didn’t need to listen hard to hear the earthiness in his bass — there was plenty of volume to go around — and as much as Dead Meadow‘s style has been hailed over their years, records and tours for its floaty, drifting psychedelic aspects, in revisiting Howls From the Hills, the flexibility of craft that has let them go so many different places is so clearly emanating from the foundation laid out in the rhythm section. Kille could lock into a roller like “Dusty Nothing” or underscore the jangle of “The Breeze Always Blows” and still go a-wanderin’ in “The White Worm,” which is able to turn its exploration back around to the verse/chorus ending in no small part because Kille‘s been holding that groove the whole time.

Classic power trio dynamic, maybe, but in a context that makes it as much Dead Meadow‘s own as much as anyone else’s. Howls From the Hills immerses the listener early with the ambient noise and far-off feedback of “Drifting Down Streams” and is kind of a mini-blowout at the culmination of its eight minutes, but holds the same kind of deceptive movement as cuts like “Sleepy Silver Door” from the self-titled or the slowed-down trippier take on “Everything’s Goin’ On” that showed up on Shivering King and Others. The band’s live records — the aforementioned Got Live if You Want It, most of 2010’s Three Kings (for which Kille was interviewed here), 2020’s Live at Roadburn 2011 (review here), and 2021’s Levitation Sessions: Live From the Pillars of God — tell another important side of that story, and there too one finds Kille essential to creating that current-like motion beneath the surface flow.

On behalf of myself and this site, for whatever it’s worth, I offer condolences to Kille‘s family, to his bandmates Simon and Laughlin, and to the band’s many fans and the multitudes inspired by his playing, songwriting, visual and/or production styles. As part of Dead Meadow, his contributions have been part of influencing a generation of heavy psychedelia, and part of what makes Howls From the Hills feel timeless now is that records so individual to the artists making them never quite fit with their time to begin with. I don’t know the future of the band, and frankly I think it would be too early and crass to speculate, but there can be no question that Kille brought something special to the mix that made Dead Meadow who they are, and as always, that work will continue to live on.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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Gonna keep it short this time (or apparently not) to sort of let the above stand on its own, but I wanted to explain a bit. I was at Roadburn, actually standing in the skate park watching Heath when Virginia’s Stephen Smith — if ever at a show, anywhere on earth, there’s at least a 30 percent chance he’ll stop through on his way to the next one — showed me the post above on his phone. In addition to needing some time to get my head back after the fest and travel, I didn’t want to be rushing to post something like it was just part of the rest of the news catchup. A person died. You want to try to honor that loss.

Took me a week I guess to think of writing about him and Howls at the Hills at the same time. I actually closed a week with the same record about 11 years ago — shocking to me how long I’ve been doing Friday Full-Lengths, and yet they’re still all categorized as Bootleg Theater instead of their own thing; makes no sense — but I figure after a decade it’s fair game if I want it to be, and once I put it on I knew I wanted it to be. I didn’t talk much about the band’s later work above, but in fact I was back and forth with Kille as part of writing the liner notes for the PostWax edition of last year’s Force From Free, and in my experience he was only ever a laid back, easy kind of person to work with. I’d say the same of Simon. Both dudes who, if they were jerks you’d say, “Well, bigger band, indie cred, sometimes that happens,” who were very much not jerks. That kind of thing means a lot to me.

Anyhow, to that’s the way it ended up what it is. Not timely, but with something like this, it doesn’t necessarily need to be in the same way it otherwise would.

I was at an appointment (actually with the same surgeon who did my meniscus operation in late-2022) for my mother this morning as she starts the process of getting one of her two very-much-in-need-of-replacing knees replaced. Bone on bone, no cartilage. A little left in the other one. Surgery hopefully in a couple weeks. But that was a drain emotionally as well, and with a weekend ahead of going to Connecticut to help The Patient Mrs.’ mom move furniture, Elephant Tree liner notes that I think need a rewrite owing to some misunderstanding of what release they were actually for — they have a couple things in the works, including the also-PostWax split with Lowrider — the regular batch of writing and having this afternoon to engage the inevitable argument of trying to give The Pecan a bath, which just sucks lately, I’m gonna punch out and call it a week.

I hope to do that DVNE review that was slated for this week on Monday — Sunnata are next in line after, but not next week — the rest of the week has premieres lined up for Maragda, Los Tayos (a Psychedelic Source Records project that will happen if it’s done in time; I love working with that label and I’m not being sarcastic), High Noon Kahuna and We Broke the Weather, so it will not lack for awesome. Until then, have a great and safe weekend and thanks again for reading.

FRM. I don’t think there’s any merch on there right now, but I’m putting the link anyway because support MIBK.

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Party in the desert, right? Certainly looks that way as the inaugural and maybe-one-time-only Burque Rock City Fest adds Dead Meadow, Greenbeard, Abrams, SuperGiant, Violet Rising and THC Worm to complete its lineup. SuperGiant are local to Albuquerque — which is the ‘Burque’ in ‘Burque City,’ where the fest is happening — this Aug. 4-5, and the first three names are familiar, but I admit I can’t find any info on Violet Rising and as this is my first time hearing/hearing of THC Worm, I’ve included the Bandcamp stream of their Dec. 2022 debut, Dead Horse Incubator, in case you’d also like to be introduced. As one might expect, it’s pretty over the top.

In the end — and I’ll note that there’s still two months to go before the festival actually takes place, so ‘end’ is relative — the lineup here is pretty solid for a lower-key take on what the same crew normally puts together for Monolith on the Mesa. A representative showing set in a different context. If this is a pivot to building something new, they certainly have the contacts, infrastructure and reach to do so, but if it’s a placeholder until 2024, it’s a badass one just the same. If you headed out, I think you probably know what’s coming, and if not, please see the first sentence above.

From the PR wire:

BURQUE ROCK CITY ANNOUNCE FINAL LINEUP!

Burque Rock City Is Happy To Announce The Full Lineup Of Bands For August 4th & 5th Downtown ABQ At The Historic El Rey Theater & Insideout Bar

Burque Rock City Would Love to Welcome: Dead Meadow * Greenbeard * Abrams * Supergiant * Violet Rising * THC Worm

Completing the Amazing Lineup with Previously Announced Bands:

Weedeater * Pike Vs The Automaton * Belzebong * Early Moods * High Desert Queen * Thunder Horse * Sorcia * Prism Bitch * Coma Revovery * Brant Bjork * Yawning Balch * Year of the Cobra * Fatso Jetson * Electric Citizen * Tenderizor * Street Tombs * Red Mesa * Ojo Malo * Nomestomper

Get Your Early Bird Tickets NOW while you can!

Early Bird Day Pass-$100: https://holdmyticket.com/event/412535

Early Bird 2 Day Pass-$200: https://holdmyticket.com/event/412537

Roman Barham, co-founder of Monolith on the Mesa, has been quietly working on Burque Rock City Fest.

Barham says:

“Monolith On The Mesa crew would love to thank everyone who helped make Monolith 2022 an awesome fest. Huge thanks from The Taos Mesa Brewery crew, the Hotel Luna Mystica crew and to all the very respectful patrons that came out and made Monolith On The Mesa 2022 an amazing tribute to our fallen brother Dano Sanchez (deceased Monolith co-founder).

We have decided to take a year off from Monolith and bring it back in 2024 to Taos Mesa Brewery.

Branching south from the Monolith On The Mesa tree is Burque Rock City Fest in Albuquerque, NM At The Historic El Rey Theater & Insideout Bar On Friday August 4th & Saturday August 5th 2023.

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THC Worm, Dead Horse Incubator (2022)

Dead Meadow, Live at Heavy Psych Sounds Fest 2022, San Francisco, CA

The title tells you what’s happening here. Dead Meadow are taking formed, coherent riffs and progressions, and pushing them into unbounded places. Some of that means jamming and some of it means psychedelic melancholy, but either way, Force Form Free is not exactly a standard album so much as a kind of outsider collection that invariably shares aspects with their other studio work while carving its own place in their discography. It’s not quite the Dead Meadow you’re used to, but then again, what’s that mean anyhow?

Force Form Free was/is an installment in PostWax Vol. II, for which I did the liner notes, and arrives to the broader public on Dec. 9. They’ve got a video up now for “The Left Hand Path,” and it gives a suitable showcase for some of the record’s more out-there aspects. You’ll like it. It’ll be fine.

Also of note, Jason Simon has a new solo collection out called Hindsight 2020 that’s available here: https://jasonsimon.bandcamp.com/album/hindsight-2020-2

From the PR wire:

DEAD MEADOW to release new album “Force Form Free” on Blues Funeral Recordings; first track and preorder available!

US psychedelic rock luminaries DEAD MEADOW unveil all details for their new album “Force Form Free” to be issued first as part of Blues Funeral Recordings’ revered PostWax series, and then as a worldwide standalone release on December 9th. First track “The Left Hand Path” and preorders are available now!

Formed in the fall of 1998, DEAD MEADOW emerged from the Washington, D.C. indie/punk scene to fuse their love of early ’70s hard rock and ’60s psychedelics into a unique marriage of dreamy guitar-fuzz bliss and stoney riffs. Over the course of seven studio albums, three live records and a Peel Session, they incorporated darker eastern influences and increasingly dense and hypnotic layering as they toured such far-reaching places as Russia and Australia and performed at renowned festivals including Roadburn and Levitation fest. They’ve become an inarguable pillar of the modern heavy psych movement alongside contemporaries like Black Mountain, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and the Black Angels.

In 2021, they began work on a collection of jams and experiments for Blues Funeral Recordings’ PostWax series, working up a disparate yet cohesive group of songs that placed new works alongside the culmination of ideas they’d been tinkering with since the band’s genesis. The result of these efforts is “Force Form Free”, a spacey and dreamy record at times, grimly propulsive at others, and which captures Dead Meadow continuing their effortless exploration of the transporting, astral-gazing form they’ve spent their entire existence pushing forward.

Watch Dead Meadow’s trippy new video “The Left Hand Path.”

About the song, guitarist and vocalist Jason Simon comments: “The Left Hand Path starts out ‘Force Form Free’ and in fact, it was written with this in mind. It serves as a statement of purpose of sorts for this unhurried and exploratory record. I find it reminiscent of the long guitar-driven drones of “Shivering King and Others”. There’s something cleansing and soothing in the swirling sea of fuzz and the repetitive dirge-like nature of the song. We want to clear a space in the listener’s head for their mind to wander and create, for the listener to paint their own mental pictures influenced by the sounds and the songs. The title itself refers to the less traveled often-maligned spiritual path that favors self-willed action and creativity over traditional dogma and belief, though in this case, it also serves as a symbol of the road less traveled, which I’ve often found to be the far more interesting route to take.”

New album “Force Form Free” will be available worldwide on December 9th, 2022 (with the ultra-limited PostWax edition shipping this October to PostWax Vol. II subscribers) on various vinyl formats and limited digipack CD. Preorder on

Blues Funeral Recordings website: https://www.bluesfuneral.com/search?q=dead+meadow
Bandcamp: https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
Euro shop: https://en.bluesfuneral.spkr.media/

DEAD MEADOW “Force Form Free”
Out December 9th on Blues Funeral Recordings
Get more info & subscribe to PostWax Vol. II at this location: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluesfuneral/postwax-vol-ii

TRACKLIST:
1. The Left Hand Path
2. The Lure Of The Next Peak
3. Valmont’s Pad
4. To Let The Time Go By
5. Force Form Free
6. Binah

DEAD MEADOW is
Jason Simon – vocals, guitars
Steve Kille – bass, sitar
Mark Laughlin – drums

https://www.facebook.com/DeadMeadowOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/thedeadmeadow/
http://www.deadmeadow.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com

Dead Meadow, “The Left Hand Path” video