Green Desert Water – Eerie Meadows
Release Date: 19th June 2026
Label: Small Stone Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Psychedelic, Stoner Rock.
FFO: Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age, Fu Manchu.
Review By: Trina Julian Edwards
Psychedelic/Stoner Rock trio from Asturias, Spain, Green Desert Water return with their long-awaited follow-up to 2021’s Black Harvest, Eerie Meadows, releasing on June 19th via Small Stone Recordings. The album features Kike Sanchís on guitar and vocals, Juan Arias on bass, and Dani Bárcena on drums. Press releases for the band note that their focus on Eerie Meadows was the opposition between the heavy and the ethereal, as well as “the feeling of finding home in the wild.” However, did that translate to the listener?
Northern Lights has a slow intro that builds in intensity, repeating the same basic melody, but adding harmonies and changing a few notes before the instruments kick in full throttle at 3:05. When the vocals return, it’s a different melody, and there’s a slowdown at the chorus, “riding on a blind horse…” Don’t miss the solo around 5:00, which has a great tone. My only complaints are that the vocals in the intro felt a bit uneven, and the intro went on for too long before the song proper.
The Blacksmith has some gritty 70s southern rock flair, and it’s got a killer groove. I love the bright, unexpected guitar melody that snakes through this track, reminiscent of the strong and often quirky melodic turns of Budgie, an excellent Welsh hard rock band from the 70s. There’s a more stripped-down verse, but there are some really nice harmonies on the chorus, and the backing vocal harmonies on later verses are a nice touch. Gives it a sort of Raconteurs-like vibe, and you can’t really go wrong with that.
The title track, Eerie Meadows, has everything a good title track needs. There’s a kind of doomier feel, but it still keeps that stoner edge. It’s what you might expect if Kyuss and Mastodon had a baby. It picks up the pace a bit around 2:00, but drops back to the slower verse, this time with harmonies. The tempo picks up again around 4:10 for an instrumental interlude, and this time it really rolls. The tempo drops again, and the vocals return to take us to the outro. I particularly liked the vocals on this track; they had some nice, smooth, bluesy slide to them.
I love how Woodcutter utilizes some nasty, groovy riffs to get us going. It does drop down into a slower verse, but the underlying guitar melody keeps the swagger that drives this track. The chorus melodies are giving pure 70s, reminiscent of the rock bands like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd that my parents brought me up on.
Holy Ground has a slower start and goes a bit doomier once it fully kicks in around the one-minute mark. They pick up the pace around 1:46, throwing down some Zeppelin-y bounce. The solo around 3:47 is excellent, squalling along over the top of the primary melody, and it continues wreaking havoc when the melody returns to the doomier vibe from earlier in the track. The guitars in this are top-notch.
Wolfhound eases you in with a groovy rhythm and plenty of dynamics. The song proper begins with warm, thick, growly bass and clean guitar highlights the chords. It has a slower verse that changes up the tempo halfway through before dropping back down to slide into the slow, bluesy jam that is the chorus. The instrumental break heats things up, but the storm begins to calm again at the coda.
My favorite track on the album is Bos Primigenius. It’s a bit shorter than the other tracks, but it has a great groove, and they remind you what they’re capable of when they decide to tear it up. The bluesy chorus slams on the brakes for a second each time it drops, but the contrast works really well here with the more traditional song structure.
Meterora has a lively intro, with a very Zeppelin-y feel. It has a slower verse but returns to the quicker leads. There are some cool effects on the vocals in the chorus, and they finally let it rip around 4:14, but they slow it down again much too soon. Fortunately, they take pity on us, and it does bounce back, building in intensity and hitting the final chorus like a hammer. Nicely done.
Overall, I’m not sure how much of Green Desert Water’s “ethereal” was coming through, but the hard rock type of heavy was definitely there. Sanchis is very expressive in his vocal delivery, and the vocal harmonies fit the genre beautifully. His leads are mesmerizing. The solos alone are worth checking out, and that guitar tone is sublime. I appreciate that the compositions are dynamic, but I was struggling with the speed, or lack thereof. I love this genre, but there were a few times I felt like I was trudging through that green desert. However, if the slower, stoner rock jams are more your thing, you won’t want to pass on Eerie Meadows.
(3.5 / 5)
