I adore Meer. There’s something very warming about listening to them, for all that they lean melancholy rather than saccharine. Best described as symphonic/progressive pop and/or rock, their music is lushly textured, drenched in strings, and emotive, often reaching for a soaring crescendo. Meer’s previous album Playing House narrowly missed the top spot in my 2021 list. In hindsight, it should probably have taken it.
The good news is they haven’t broken anything that made Playing House great. I mentioned in my TYMHM piece that Meer has a sound: a sparse melody on piano or guitar, some strings join, a fragile vocal line, and a build of all of those up to a great big soaring payoff. That’s still present and correct in Wheels Within Wheels, and it even opens with a brief string motif that’s a deliberate callback to the previous record before setting off in its own direction. The even better news is that the writing outshines Playing House. Nearly every song is a banger. The big, catchy vocal lines are really big. “Golden Circle,” “To What End” and more are super satisfying to sing along to. They play with the instrumentation and writing a bit more. There’s more of a dalliance with rock, with more distorted guitar, a spot of slide guitar here and there, and solos on “Chains of Changes” and “Today Tonight Tomorrow.” Closing track “This Is the End” goes actively post-rock, with heavier instrumentation, an unsettling key, and a more complex, extended song structure.
Meer is an ensemble, not just a band, and the (very many) musicians here are great. They succeed by combining all the moving parts with a sense of orchestration that would make most symphonic metal bands blush. They’re confident across the whole range of styles they touch, from sparse to bombastic. Still, Wheels Within Wheels is never too busy, allowing listeners to pick out the details. There’s a bass bit I love on “Something in the Water,” some pretty viola on “Take Me to the River,” or the piano on “Today Tonight Tomorrow.” Yes, I’m writing for a metal website, but I really enjoy some songs being more rock and guitar-forward (“Golden Circle,” among others). I’m inclined towards having opinions on vocalists and often feel slightly bad about not having space to say as much about, say, Åsa Ree on violin. But Meer’s two vocalists and lyricists, brother/sister duo Knut and Johanne Nesdal1 are brilliant. They carry the emotional heart of the music, trading lead vocal roles and duets, from the tender and fragile to the big, belted choruses. From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/meer-wheels-within-wheels-review/
