THE MEADS OF ASPHODEL "Running Out of Time Doing Nothing"

THE MEADS OF ASPHODEL

"Running Out of Time Doing Nothing"

In these days when imitation is expected and unoriginality is almost an art form, it is incredibly rare to find a band that can be compared to nothing but itself. Such a band is England's indescribable MEADS OF ASPHODEL. Where do you find the words to describe these guys? The dictionary able to do that has not yet been written.

They are described by press here as "experimental extreme metal" and I guess that will do it if you're looking for clipped, brief descriptions.But that doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the weirdness the MEADS delve into here. Not one of the eleven songs here can be described as straightforward ANYTHING. Every single song includes a multiude of styles, quite a few of which have nothing to do with heavy metal. But the metal's there, too. If I were to delve into the shifting genres here, this would wind up being the longest and probably the most pretentious review ever written here. But to briefly cover the range, we have rough and dirty punk, honkytonk piano, electronic dance music of the most avant-garde kind, stirring passages of almost symphonic grandeur, female vocals, foul mouthed ramblings of the Cockney kind, something that sounds almost like gospel....You begin to get the picture. And almost every song here wanders from peaks of raging rough-hewn metal to valleys of subdued ambience at some point.

Past works from the MEADS have dealt with the historical life and death of Jesus Christ and the Nazi Holocaust. Here there doesn't seem to be an overarching theme, but contempt for the human race as a whole seems to be a constant. The song titles themselves reveal the schizophrenic whackiness of the band:   "The Broken Wings of a Hud Hud", "Recollections of a Hand Loom Weaver", "I Stood Tiptoe Reaching Up for Heaven".

The unpredictable craziness of it all is rather thrilling after hearing wave upon wave of easily described cookie cutter metal. That's what always makes MEADS OF ASPHODEL worth investigating. To be honest, I do not consider this album to be anywhere near their best...that honor I would bestow upon "The Murder of Jesus The Jew". At times, it kind of drags and sometimes too much is too much. But it's such a unique beast that I can't help but recommend it to tired ears seeking something really different.

GODREAH RECORDS

THE MEADS OF ASPHODEL