MEADOWS are comprised of 4 young lads from Holland that have managed to capture the sound of a good beating in some kind of sonic-bottle and release it through their music.  When most people think of Holland they just think of getting high and not having to walk up any hills, while these two things are great they fail to encapsulate the heavier side of this part of the world. Being nestled nicely in the European bosom they have all of the great tours coming through and so many fantastic influences that it's hard to believe we don't see more brutal bands coming from the land of tulips and windmills.

The debut E.P from MEADOWS is Sleepless, a 5 track jaunt into the bowels of fury.  Opening with a deceptively simple intro, the album explodes into one of the stompiest riffs I have heard for quite some time. The art of stomping seems to have been lost in amidst the technical wankery that is present in many of the current Metal scenes.This is an art that MEADOWS seem to have mastered however and throughout the album I kept finding myself with bits of the neighbour's cat getting caught in my boot treads as I blindly stamped like some kind of slow moving lunatic.

Everything about the music is designed to be deep and angry, the guitars rumble somewhere close to the brown note and the bass seems to have become some intense infra-bass pounding in the background layers of hearing. The vocal work is guttural and this may not be to everyone's tastes but fuck them, it works and it sounds evil. The higher screams fortunately stay away from the embarrassingly Screamo path that has become all too common to hear with bands like this. Rather they add a very welcome sense of tone that gives the rumbling bowels of Satan a bit of variety. The pace of the songs is in a state of constant flux but never seems to get ahead of itself, the slow bits are exactly where they are needed and it speeds up just in time for you to launch a punch at someone's face.

Violence and fantasies of dismemberment aside, this is a truly fantastic debut album. I would recommend this for anyone with a passion for music that makes you want to shit on your hands and then beat someone to death. If that's not your cup of tea then this may not be what you are looking for but I suggest trying it anyway. You never know, you might develop a taste for faecal matter.