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All Issues » Issue #114 » Music

November 20, 2008 Issue

You're Not Pretty

local band Meridene unveils new album (listen to some tracks)

words by Ian Jacoby

    The word "catchy" came up quite a bit in the interviews with Meridene. It turns out that “catchy” can mean a lot of things. When a centerfielder is catchy, we all get pumped and start buying ill-fitting baseball shirts. When a flu is catchy, we run like crazy and take super gross vitamin C tablets. Fortunately for us, local power-poppers, Meridene is most certainly in the former category, and not in the latter.

    “To me, Meridene songs are still exactly the same as they’ve always been – catchy,” said keyboardist Paul Brandt in a recent interview.

    To say that Meridene has been in a bit of a flux since its last article in V1 is a bit of an understatement. Since then, the band has gotten rid of a banjo, replaced their bass and piano players (twice),  wooed a recording phenom to join in on guitar, and added a drummer that actually makes me scared for my life. Yes, quite literally.

    They’ve taken a year to record a new album, played to large-ish crowds in other cities, dropped the country twang and added a little bit of mouth-punch to their set. This is all fine and good, but it doesn’t answer this burning question; do they rock?

    Fortunately for the city of Eau Claire, the answer is a resounding yes. Meridene’s new album, You’re Not Pretty, You’re Worse finds the band awash in dirty guitar squalls and keyboard flourishes. Where the first Meridene album was a simple, almost Sufjan-esque approach to songwriting, this one relishes in the decadent. Track after track drives, heaves, and pleads over pounding drums and rollicking bass lines. This is an album without middle ground, a collection of songs that wears its heart on its sleeve. Let’s just put it this way, there are trombones on this album. Lots of trombones.

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Comments (4)

ian
12/03/08

Whoops, that's my bad. Sorry Amble Down. Keri, to answer your question (and being that it's surprisingly relevant to this conversation,) Meridene is actually a misspelling of Meridian, Wisconsin. Trevor (the lead singer) was looking in a book about weird wisconsin locales and mispronounced it. The name stuck

cmp
12/03/08

You're not Bmoen- you're worse.

BMoen
12/03/08

Hate to be a jerk, but it should be noted that Amble Down is spelled like that - two words. Nitpicky - I know.

Keri
11/26/08

I've always loved the name Meridene. However, I've never be able figure out the meaning of the word and why the band picked that name. Anybody know?

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