I Mother Earth
The Quicksilver Meat Dream

The Dark Side of Gaia

Why review a 2003 album today?? It would be enough to say because it's beautiful or because there is shamefully little about this band even online, but the truth is that I can't do without this album, for a good three years. It is one of those works that every now and then I have to take out of the drawer, because I miss it, because it unconsciously calls me, because its veiled underlying sadness makes me feel better, making me less alone. Disappointment and anger can lead a band to dissolution, or inject new energy and further progress. And that's what happened in this "The Quicksilver Meat Dream".

In just a few moments of "0157 H7," you realize that IME has turned their backs on the sunshine expressed in previous works (especially "Dig," as superb as it was unsold), on the funky guitars, the carefree Farrellian voice, and the jammed digressions supported by loads of percussion. You will find no trace, or almost no trace of them here, because even when Mother Earth is obscured by an eclipse, the warmth cannot vanish suddenly, it remains alive and throbbing, ready to re-emerge when you least expect it. But the eclipse is total for almost the entire duration, represented by an electronic aura changing from melancholic ("I Is Us") to adrenaline rush ("God Rocket"), by the agonizing and angry voice (practically everywhere), and by guitars dirtied with synths and filters ("Choke"). Those recently fascinated by the English wave of Amplifier and Oceansize might shout less at the miracle if three years ago they had come across IME, THESE IME, which could have even been the right bridge between the immediacy of the former and the introspection of the latter.

In this case too, the average playing time is high, and even with IME, the structure of the pieces is very articulated and although full of catchy melodies, it is anything but predictable. But what matters most is that even with this album, one is tempted to drop everything they are doing to let oneself go with the listening and be captivated by the emotions. Yet, the real soul of IME is palpable even in the grayer pieces, ready to explode in the crescendo and evolution of the songs. They have never been hyper-technicians, but instrumentalists who with a few notes make you dust off the imaginary guitar hanging on the wall (I love the colors Jagor Tanna is able to use, his legatos, the shaking, the vibratos... it chokes me up) or use your legs as percussions or jam slapped and fast bass lines (see "Juicy," which perhaps clashes a bit on this album but represents what IME were in their previous works: stuff to make the best Flea and Navarro pale, stuff that makes you want to pick up the phone and call back your mates excitedly: "Hey guys, what do you think about reforming the band??? I have a couple of covers to suggest! A Canadian band that kicks the world's ass, but the world doesn't know!"). As always, I've gone wayward, as always, I've let myself get carried away.

The eight-plus minutes of the concluding "Meat Dreams" are about to end, after at least three changes of atmosphere (it may have little or nothing to do with it, but I think of the Theater from "Awake," when Petrucci rediscovered the wah-wah in metal, when the notes weren't yet 10,000 per second and strange tingling ran down your spine). As already mentioned, even in the omnivorous web, there are very few traces of IME, and their website (www.imotherearth.com) has been offline for too long, leading me to believe in their dissolution. For these reasons, I have decided to link samples of a few minutes and include almost entirely "Hell and malfunction," perhaps the most representative. Perhaps they will be to no avail, perhaps it’s already too late, but I hope they at least serve to bring them the respect they are due, albeit posthumously.

SAMPLE HERE: Choke; God Rocket; Hell & Malfunction; Juicy; No Coma; I Is Us