Release Date: April 22nd 2022. Record Label: Karhuvaltio Records. Format: DD
Meadow - Tracklisting
1. DRASTIC, VIBRANT
2. NÁKÀN
3. SYNCHRONIZED
4. IRREVOCABLE
5. TRANSIENTS
6. RESONATE & RELATE
Members
Jan Trygg - guitars / vocals / samples
Timo Niskala - drums / samples / ambient
Tapani Levanto - bass / backing vocals
Review
Finnish Alt Doom Shoegazers Slowenya return with their new album Meadow and not only it moves further away from the 80’s Alt Rock/Alt Metal influences on their debut release but fully builds to a more cinematic style of music from that album. Adapting a “Deftones/TOOL” style of Progressive Metallic delivery with a Doomgaze edge.
Meadow is quite unforgiving with its relentless style of Sludge Metal, Post-Rock, Post-Metal, Doom Metal and Psychedelic Ambient sounds. Slowenya are fully living upto their creative potential which you can hear superbly well on the excellent opening songs of “Drastic, Vibrant” and NÁKÀN.
“Drastic, Vibrant” is an instrumental ambient song with flourishes of Psych Rock, Glitch based Electronica sounds and cool sounding Industrial beats.
Second song NÁKÀN is Slowenya playing classic sounding Deftones upbeat Alt Metal grooves with almost Nine Inch Nail industrial themes and gloomy lyrics keeping this song firmly in the Alternative Doom world. Sludgy guitars bring that a classy layer of heaviness with surreal upbeat vocals. The lyrics are intricate and emotional with the Psychedelic atmospherics being quite modern and classical at the same time.
Third song Synchronized carries on the Post-Doom/Industrial/Shoegaze heard on the previous track with the emphasis on more sludgy depths of pure heaviness. Distortion is a big factor on this song with Ambient Textures and Vocals allowing a “dreamy” effect with excellent dual vocals that have a huge David Bowie influence to them. The vocals are harmonized for the most part but the song becomes more exciting when the solitary vocals appear with dark and twisted results. The guitars eerily remind myself of early-era TORCHE in places.
The remaining three songs on the album Irrevocable, Transients and Resonate & Relate all follow the same twisted creative path as the first path but with perhaps Slowenya showing more experimental flourishes on certain parts of the album. Each of the songs have that delicious Industrial/Shoegaze/Doom style of music that Slowenya appear to adapt as their new sound. This style of music was nowhere to be seen on their debut release Somer. That was a major surprise to myself when first listening to the album. Though, there are still similarities between Meadow and Somer for Slowenya to entice longtime fans of the band to their new creative sound and vision.
The production is flawless and allows Meadow to have an “EPIC” quality to it all. Meadow is an exquisite and beautifully modern heavy release of Doom/Sludge Metal grooves with a realistic experimental edge that make this such a better album compared to Somer.
Words by Steve Howe
Thanks to Slowenya for the promo.
Meadow will be available to buy from Karhuvaltio Records from April 22nd 2022.
Links
https://www.facebook.com/Slowenya
https://www.instagram.com/slowenyaband/
https://slowenya.bandcamp.com/
