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Stylistically there is a different kind of freedom (there is even a nod to garage rock on ‘The Queen Of All Returns’) that seems less about affectation or indulgence and more about adhering to the spirit of each individual song, making for harder-fought but longer lasting rewards.
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It’s as entertaining and theatrical as the music is rough and compelling.
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With cleaner, more refined production quality to boot, Growth is an interesting and fully realized progression.
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In full flight of one of their frequent psychedelic crescendos, Dead Meadow are among rock's most eloquently deafening joys.
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MojoOld Growth has the primeval, fuzzed-out power of the trio's earlier albums, but with a new clarity and groove. [Mar 2008, p.113]
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In spite of some indistinct songwriting, Old Growth on the whole still has the power to alter minds, musically or otherwise.
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For the first time, Dead Meadow have created something for everyone, not just fans of one aspect of their sound. While that might piss off those very same fans, it is for the greater good.
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Their new songs are sunnier and jumpier than 2005's dirgeful "Feathers." [Mar 2008, p.100]
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lot of people may be upset by the departure from the extraordinary songs that were made in Dead Meadow and Shivering King and Others. I know I was at first. But this is an album about patience, the kind of patience that takes a forest to form.
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For the most part, though, Old Growth is exactly what this band has always done.
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Nearly everything else on Old Growth consists of middling blues-rock with impressive soloing but negligible heft.
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Where the group used to sound like a bulldozer demolishing rubble, now they're more like a snow plow gently shoving away a winter wonderland. It's still good, but isn't stoner rock supposed to sound destructive?
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For Dead Meadow this is growth of a kind, and it is certainly a move away from their old sound. Whether this is positive growth or not depends on what you want from the band, but as a soundtrack to getting well and truly caned, you can't go far wrong.
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Under The RadarOld Growth never quite achieves the glory of its predecessor. [Winter 2008, p.81]
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UncutThis fifth album gets progressively less fuzztoned and more overtly tuneful as it progresses. [Mar 2008, p.85]
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'Till Kingdom Come' is really the only song that stands apart from the pack, thanks to its strident guitar leads and orchestral underpinnings. The rest of the tracks, while persuasively put, come and go with an effect that’s distantly brooding at best.
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Q MagazineOld Growth blurs mearly into a long yawn. [Mar 2008, p.103]