Saturday 18/08/07 Dead Meadow, Youthmovies @The Cellar, Oxford

In a previous review for Gigwise, we said Youthmovies looked like a boy-band and tonight they certainly have the requisite different looks. Graeme Murray is sat on the drum-stool, slim and minimal of hair, whereas the imposing Sam Scott stands with an Aslan-like mop of blond hair. The music is also contrasting; for the opening tune Andrew Mears' high-pitched guitar is off-set by Stephen Hammond's funky low bass. Sam Scott is now fully integrated into the band, puffing on that horn like he's at a New Orleans funeral after-party. The second song is horny in a different way, starting as a repetitive disco groove, before spinning off into a slow and hard rock grind... "Breathing becomes narrow", as Mears sings on the next song, 'Archive it everywhere'. Youthmovies played nothing from their last album, 'Hurrah...' and their confidence in the new songs is well-founded. Theirs is an imaginative, expansive sound and the crowd answered every song by putting their hands together, whooping and whistling.
                 
Dead Meadow's sound-check lasted so long that it looked as if they might have been really mashed and this was their actual set. There are lots of drug language descriptions of their music, after all: stoner, acid-rock, etc. As it turned out, Dead Meadow were in practice, thankfully. They worked studiously to get a muddy sound for the actual set. Given that drug-sound, the band were surprisingly fresh of face. It was also a wonder how just three men could wrench and bash such densely-layered music from their instruments. It's very different from the tightly-played, minimal indie that's been the fashion in recent years. The on-looking Young Knives had faces that were hard to read. Dead Meadow are defiantly retro with a mighty, sweet 'n' sour wall of sound that could have easily sound-tracked the summer of love or Vietnam nightmares.