Freya Records
Netherlands
2020
37:33 mins
https://www.facebook.com/meadowsbandofficial/
https://meadowsofficial.bandcamp.com/releases
Rating 80/100
The band ‘Meadows is, so far as I could determine, a splinter group formed from the Dutch Band ’ Silhouette’ by lead guitarist ‘Daniel van der Weijde’ together with band members from ‘Silhouette’, ‘Incidence’ and ex-Coppersky. It is difficult to know whether this creative is the result of the ‘lockdown’ or a product of ‘Daniels’ desire to showcase his undoubted compositional prowess and wonderfully dazzling lead guitar skills. It is fair to say though that the writing of ‘Modern Emotions’ has been in preparation for the last few years suggesting that a solo project has always been an objective of his desires.
The first thing to make perfectly clear is that the band ‘Meadows,’ the subject of this review, is a band from Holland formed by ‘Daniel van der Weijde’. They are not the UK family orientated Celtic crossover band of the same name. But certainly, especially on the first track, the strains of acoustic guitar, Celtic violin and piano that creep in throughout the album, could create some slight confusion between the two bands. However, that is where the similarity ends as the music here tends more towards a bastion of powerful heavy metal riffing guises sandwiched between beautifully engineered and well-considered guitar and violin phrases.
Indeed ‘Modern Emotions’ is without a doubt a very diverse album shifting ingeniously through the gears, between a variety of different musical styles. Central though, to the overall sound, is a complexity of song based material with gently delivered vocals by ‘Peter Meijer’ and nicely arranged two and three harmonies. Peter actually wrote and pieced the vocals together. Each of the songs is built up with a variety of different phases and contributory indulgence where the individuality of the separate instruments come to the fore. Some particularly nice violin is spread out through the tracks together with gorgeous piano. Apparently and I quote:- “To get this musical journey to an even higher standard, Daniël invited Ruud Jolie from the Dutch symphonic metal band ‘Within Temptation’, and Richard Henshall from the UK based progressive metal band Haken’, for two guest performances on the album. However, the question of why these two guest guitar interventions were necessary, is beyond me considering the obvious skill of ‘Daniel van der Weijde’ who could easily of handled those solos with as much skill and dextrorotary.
Summary: A nice melodic album with an excellent extravaganza of rapid lead guitar fingerwork.
Daniel van der Weijde :Guitars, synths, drum programming, mixing & mastering
Jurjen Bergsma -Bass guitar
Peter Meijer -Vocals & lyrics The album is about daring to dream and fantasize, nostalgia, accepting each other, but also ab the growing pressure to perform in our modern society and the mental consequences on ourselves.
With:
Erik Laan: additional piano (1,8)
Sophie Zaaijer: Violin (1,4,8)
Ruud Jolie: Guitar solo (6)
Richard Henshall: Guitar solo (8)
Track Listing:-
- Dance With The Corpse Bride
- Modern Emotions
- Nostalgia
- Rebecca
- Powerture
- Good Times
- The Void
- The Brave
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