Dead Meadows music is a lot of things: heavy, dreamy, trippy, expansive, reflective and evocative. Many of their stoner rock compatriots share those attributes, but dont mistake Dead Meadow for banner-waving proponents of the genre. On their fourth and most fully realized album, the band displays its greatest sonic range to date, from the Sabbath/Budgie-like soaring sludge of "Lets Jump In" and "Eyeless Gaze All Eyes/Dont Tell the Riverman" to the psych/folk lilt of "At Her Open Door" and "Such Hawks Such Hounds" to the Byrdsian melodicism of the gorgeously reverbed "Stacys Song." On Feathers, the bands first album as a quartet with the addition of guitarist Cory Shane, Dead Meadow whispers and suggests as much as they pummel and throb. Unlike their stoner brethren, who are often unrelentingly ponderous in a one-dimension manner, Dead Meadow understand the inherent power of painting in subtler shades. -Brian Baker, ZIA Record Exchange
