On new album Warble Womb (Xemu), Dead Meadow continues going its own way with a thick, dense sound that includes traces of folk, metal, ’60s rock, swampy blues and murky psychedelia. Hints of Howlin’ Wolf and Neil Young also go drifting through the mix from time to time. The long hours the band puts into its music is evident on every track of Warble Womb, an album that took three years to put together. The songs were shaped in Dead Meadow’s home studio and involved experiments with new sounds and recording techniques. Guitarist Jason Simon will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Dead Meadow feature.
Simon: I am a fan of a finely crafted, spine-chilling tale of the weird and the macabre. In the grand tradition begun with the master, Edgar Allen Poe, there has been little innovation since the great H.P. Lovecraft left his indelible mark. Thomas Ligotti is something new. There is no excessive violence, “good vs. evil” or janky Stephen King-type protagonists. Rather through subtlety, Ligotti creates a surreal and unsettling atmosphere of profound unease and impending cosmic doom. Where as in an H.P. Lovecraft tale, the protagonist may make some attempt at a struggle against the unavoidable doom that awaits, characters in Ligotti tales are often unable to muster up even the attempt, having become aware their doom is woven into the very fabric of the cosmos. Possibly one could describe Ligotti as Lovecraft combined with writers like Burroughs and Borges.
Video after the jump.
