Bandcamp Druidess have a thesis, and it is refreshingly local. Rather than reach for the usual Californian desert or Scandinavian frost, the Newcastle four-piece build Trip Meadow out of the folklore of their own patch of northern England, hermits and forest witches and the giants people used to say the hills descended from. Guitarist Daniel Downing put it plainly: they wanted the record to tell the folklore stories of their local area over big riffs. That specificity is the album’s best quality, and it is worth holding onto, because the record around it is a genuinely likeable debut with a production problem it never quite solves.
The band itself is a small regional supergroup, and you can hear the range in the lineup. Shonagh Brown sings and plays bass, and it is the bass that keeps stealing the record: a dirty, growling, fuzzed-out tone that repeatedly steps forward as the lead voice while the guitars sit further back. Daniel Downing doubles on guitar and saxophone, James Hill brings a Hammond organ that pushes the whole thing toward a smoky, late-sixties occult-rock feel, and Sam Armstrong drums. When those elements lock in, as on the ten-minute title track or the loose, breathing “Descended from Giants,” the band sound like exactly what they are aiming for: Iommi worship with a cocktail-lounge haze drifting through it, riffs you can nod to and a mood you can sink into.
The trouble is the mix, and it is a consistent one. Almost everything here is dry and direct, a rehearsal-room immediacy that suits the riffs but strands Brown’s clean vocal high and isolated on top of the arrangement rather than embedded in it. On the more compressed tracks, “Knightingales,” “Mandragora,” “The Forest Witch’s Daughter,” the master is pushed hard enough that the low mids congest and the drums lose their body, and a couple of the songs end up mumbling where they should breathe. It is telling that the best-sounding track, “Descended from Giants,” is also the one left most alone: unforced, organic, the vocal sitting inside the room instead of hovering above it. The band clearly know what a good live sound feels like. They just did not get it onto all seven tracks.
None of this sinks the record, because the writing underneath is sound and the personality is real. There is a genuine identity here, the sax and organ giving Druidess a texture most of their fuzz-worship peers do not have, and the folklore framing gives the whole thing a reason to exist beyond the riff. What it lacks is polish and a little restraint at the mastering stage, the difference between a promising debut and one that fully lands. As a first full-length after a well-received EP, Trip Meadow is a likeable, characterful record that plays to a clear strength and then partly buries it in the mix. Play it loud, forgive the flatness, and enjoy the bass.
Fuzzed, organ-and-sax heavy psych rooted in classic Iommi worship, carried by a dirty, growling bass that repeatedly steps up as the lead voice. The recurring issue is the mix: dry and direct in a way that suits the riffs but leaves the clean vocal stranded high and isolated on top of the arrangement rather than embedded in the room. The more compressed tracks, “Knightingales,” “Mandragora” and “The Forest Witch’s Daughter,” are pushed hard into the master, congesting the low mids and thinning the drums. The clear exception is “Descended from Giants,” the most naturally recorded track, where the vocal sits inside the room, the guitars keep a dusty grain and the whole thing breathes. The title track and “Descended from Giants” are where the Hammond, sax and fuzz cohere into the smoky occult-rock mood the band are after. Strong personality and good riffs, undercut by a flat, front-loaded mix on too much of the record.
Standout tracks: Descended from Giants, Trip Meadow, Mandragora
