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Meadows End: Ode to Quietus

04/08/11 || cadenz

Örnsköldsvik, that small town by the Eastern shore of Sweden. Producer of men capable of lighting the lamp in the greatest of all leagues known to man – the NHL. Yes, we’re talking hockey you fucknut. Peter Forsberg, Markus Näslund, the Sedin twins…yes, indeed – stick handlers they know how to make. What about melodic “death” metal with goth tendencies? Well, they’ve managed to squirt out at least one band, evident as of this review. Meadows End saw the light of dawn for the first time in 1993, peered glumly at it through his/her/its/penis’ eyes and proclaimed: “I shalt not release an album until I have come of age. Or maybe one year premature.” And behold – with “Ode to Quietus”, the prophecy has dramatically transformed itself into a splendid truth, which needs to be documented into the An(n)als of Time, which are of course safely kept within the vast and impenetrable vaults of Global Domination, The Library of All Things Anal. We fart in your general direction.

Meadows End have, despite their incredibly stupid and emo moniker, successfully recruited musicians for the massively unsurprising task of maintaining a line-up that records music. (I know, compelling.) And with music we’re talking music of the Swedish late 90’s/early 00’s kind, which is to say melodic (so-called) death metal with keyboards. If your very first thought was: “This will sound gay,” I’ll be happy to confirm this to be true to the very last cock stroke. By writing riffs, melodies and chord progressions that evoke fairies and Iron Maiden instead of zombies and Entombed, Meadows End tap dance their way out of the lands of all things death. All the adequate Brandbergian growls in the world will not turn that tide. Though most riffs are OK and work in context, the catchiness factor is below zero (Kelvin) and everything feels like a watered-down version of Dark Tranquillity with the occasional breakdown.

The arrangements are passable, but with too many strings- and piano-infested/-accentuated parts, probably ‘cause the keyboardist has to have something to play all the time as well. Anything else would be discriminating, and the Swedish Union of Corny Keyboardists (SUCK) would torture every defiler of rules with a day’s worth of improvised Jens Johansson solos over galloping double bass rhythms and generic power metal riffs. Stratovarius, fuck you. Seriously, as much as this overusage of keyboards puts Meadows End a little bit beside the stereotype, it softens up the atmosphere all too much. I feel that the Swedes’ ambition is to have an energetic drive in their songs, but it’s hampered a bit by the omnipresent keyboards. If they were used a bit more sparingly, they would be much more effective when they enter the sound picture.

The biggest problem with “Ode to Quietus” is the lack of catchy material. I couldn’t for my life pinpoint which track is which, how they differ from each other, or hum a single melody or riff from the whole album. For all I know, Meadows End could have used the same riffs in all songs and I couldn’t tell. The production is good and clear, the vocals are good and the playing is tight, but the song material…you know when you were young, a small boy/girl/goat, and you took your friend’s Barbie doll and, curiously, looked up its skirt? Well, this album is that doll. Looks/sounds nice enough, but all the essential bits are missing.

4,5

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Self-released
Website: www.meadowsend.se
Band
Johan Brandberg: vocals
Jan Dahlberg: guitars
Stefan Sjölander: guitars
Robin Mattsson: keyboards
Mats Helli: bass
Daniel Tiger: drums

Tracklist
01. Beyond the Dead Cold Surface
02. Resurrection of Madness
03. The Gloom That Is His World
04. Homeland
05. Coven of Blood
06. My Demon
07. Starvation 12
08. Falling Asleep

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