DEAD MEADOW

OLD GROWTH

By John Disalvo

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GENRE | PSYCH-GAZE

VERDICT | A GOOD TRIP

LABEL | MATADOR RECORDS

RELEASE DATE | 2.05.08

MATADORRECORDS.COM

All gratuitous Sabbath references aside, something about Old Growth feels unmistakably like imbibing a fistful of hallucinogens and wandering through a forest filled with magical trees. As the opener "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" starts to settle into a comfortable Zeppelinesque groove ... Holy shit! It's Kevin Shields' ghost surfacing out of the lake ripping a weirdly appropriate psychedelic solo! It's also not hard to imagine the disembodied head of J. Mascis serenely smiling through the clouds during the stoned alt-country of "Keep On Walking." In the end, the title speaks for itself: Old Growth doesn't deviate much from Dead Meadow's established sound, but it's a growth of a kind—tree-like.