Tom Lynch

Vice Records’ artists Dark Meat—a seventeen-piece rock collective from Athens, Georgia—somehow, amongst all the chaos that comes with throwing psychedelic rock, jazz, marching-band horn accompaniment, bluesy interludes and gospel into a rather large blender, makes “Universal Indians,” the band’s bold new record, a concrete experience, not to mention a mesmerizing and inspiring one as well. Many of the members of the band live together on a giant hundred-acre sustainable-living eco-village, where they farm and make music and dabble in bio-diesel conversion. I’m no hippie, pretty far from it, but if this mess of sounds doesn’t make me want to sell my piece-of-shit car, kick off my shoes forever and burn all my money, I don’t know what will. Maybe this is the first music I’ve heard in a long time that made me want to be in the band. Or maybe it’s the rumors swirling that this live show is one for the ages. Either way, I don’t think it should be missed, both the show and the thirty-five-foot bright green GMC coach bus they’re traveling in.

Dark Meat plays May 24 at the AV-aerie, 2000 West Fulton, at 10pm. $10. (2008-05-20)

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