Texans' sixth marks a return to fiery form...
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead would be the first to admit that the band’s trajectory since 2002’s ‘Source Tags and Codes’ album has, by that high standard, flatlined these last few years.
They’re a band previously mired in a less-than-amicable label split – Trail of Dead and Interscope don’t exactly see eye to eye on artistic direction or control – reeling from a less than fawning critical response on two counts (we’re discounting ‘The Secret Of Elena’s Tomb’), and faced with the prospect of going it alone. 2005’s ‘World’s Apart’, for all its grand aspirations, wasn’t quite the majestic monster we’d all hoped for and 2006’s ‘So Divided’ took the faltering points of the radio-friendly blueprint and was rightly panned for its worrying lack of strength and lifeless, over-produced sheen.
You could easily point to the corporate wrangling between band and label, but the more pertinent question was always going to be: what direction do Trail of Dead take once emancipated?
With frontman Conrad Keely understandably vocal about the breakdown – “We finally have the artistic freedom we’ve always wanted, with no pressure to create radio music, no legal department to OK our artwork, and no A&R breathing down our necks” – it was unlikely ‘The Century of Self’ would be racked with three-minute drive-time doozies. So, for a band weary of the industry process, it’s a testament to Trail of Dead’s stubborn resolution to strike out and make the album they’ve threatened to since ‘Source Tags and Codes’ and perhaps the album ‘World’s Apart’ should have been. Fuck you, man! Indeed.
And from the gargantuan bellow of ‘Giant’s Causeway’, Trail of Dead announce, in no uncertain terms, that they’ve reinvigorated the dynamic, theatrical bombast that made ‘Source Tags and Codes’ such a revered marker.
It’s a rousing opening, slow built with considered, if telegraphed, progression – tsunamis of cymbal crashes, hammered, reverberating piano chords… and then we’re hurtled into the stamping pomp of ‘Far Pavillions’, Keely and Jason Reece’s vocals back to their familiar sinew-straining call and response.
The monstrous ‘Isis Unveiled’ takes off at a similarly careering pace, a re-emboldened Keely roaring, biting, snapping every lyric out, as if each one was a bitter response to a personal attack. ‘Halcyon Days’, the second of the six-minute epics, builds and swells with every sweeping key change and colossal percussion smashes it can muster while ‘Pictures of an Only Child’ briefly allows some melodious respite before soaring into life.
This is Trail of Dead reawakened, flexing every compromised creative impulse; exercising every destructive urge to build it up and tear it down; a peacock display of grandiose ambition repressed by the powers that were. There’s purpose and there’s release, and it’s hard to escape the relentless sense of triumph that permeates almost every track.
At the behest of withering an already well-thumbed thesaurus, ‘Bells of Creation’ is apocalyptic – a piano-led behemoth of mighty choruses driven by thumping bass pedals and the thrashing hands of Thor, while ‘Inland Sea’ draws from similarly vast wells of destruction, heaving and swelling with alternate waves of cymbals and piano, Keely wailing over the maelstrom.
‘The Century of Self’ is an album with an accomplished sense of completion – a rolling score of disparate tracks segueing into a focused, poignant collective. And for all its scintillating, visceral energy, it’s an album that remains poised and impending, balanced by majestic composition and a patient anticipation for demolishing everything it builds. Exhausted, ‘Insatiable Two’ lulls the album to a close with a final flourish of victorious anthemic defiance. It might be two steps back and one giant step forward, but this is progression nonetheless.
Follow once more...
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A full feature on Trail of Dead will run in issue 36 of Clash magazine.
Read our thoughts on the band’s seminal ‘Source Tags & Codes’ LP HERE.
They’re a band previously mired in a less-than-amicable label split – Trail of Dead and Interscope don’t exactly see eye to eye on artistic direction or control – reeling from a less than fawning critical response on two counts (we’re discounting ‘The Secret Of Elena’s Tomb’), and faced with the prospect of going it alone. 2005’s ‘World’s Apart’, for all its grand aspirations, wasn’t quite the majestic monster we’d all hoped for and 2006’s ‘So Divided’ took the faltering points of the radio-friendly blueprint and was rightly panned for its worrying lack of strength and lifeless, over-produced sheen.
You could easily point to the corporate wrangling between band and label, but the more pertinent question was always going to be: what direction do Trail of Dead take once emancipated?
With frontman Conrad Keely understandably vocal about the breakdown – “We finally have the artistic freedom we’ve always wanted, with no pressure to create radio music, no legal department to OK our artwork, and no A&R breathing down our necks” – it was unlikely ‘The Century of Self’ would be racked with three-minute drive-time doozies. So, for a band weary of the industry process, it’s a testament to Trail of Dead’s stubborn resolution to strike out and make the album they’ve threatened to since ‘Source Tags and Codes’ and perhaps the album ‘World’s Apart’ should have been. Fuck you, man! Indeed.
And from the gargantuan bellow of ‘Giant’s Causeway’, Trail of Dead announce, in no uncertain terms, that they’ve reinvigorated the dynamic, theatrical bombast that made ‘Source Tags and Codes’ such a revered marker.
It’s a rousing opening, slow built with considered, if telegraphed, progression – tsunamis of cymbal crashes, hammered, reverberating piano chords… and then we’re hurtled into the stamping pomp of ‘Far Pavillions’, Keely and Jason Reece’s vocals back to their familiar sinew-straining call and response.
The monstrous ‘Isis Unveiled’ takes off at a similarly careering pace, a re-emboldened Keely roaring, biting, snapping every lyric out, as if each one was a bitter response to a personal attack. ‘Halcyon Days’, the second of the six-minute epics, builds and swells with every sweeping key change and colossal percussion smashes it can muster while ‘Pictures of an Only Child’ briefly allows some melodious respite before soaring into life.
This is Trail of Dead reawakened, flexing every compromised creative impulse; exercising every destructive urge to build it up and tear it down; a peacock display of grandiose ambition repressed by the powers that were. There’s purpose and there’s release, and it’s hard to escape the relentless sense of triumph that permeates almost every track.
At the behest of withering an already well-thumbed thesaurus, ‘Bells of Creation’ is apocalyptic – a piano-led behemoth of mighty choruses driven by thumping bass pedals and the thrashing hands of Thor, while ‘Inland Sea’ draws from similarly vast wells of destruction, heaving and swelling with alternate waves of cymbals and piano, Keely wailing over the maelstrom.
‘The Century of Self’ is an album with an accomplished sense of completion – a rolling score of disparate tracks segueing into a focused, poignant collective. And for all its scintillating, visceral energy, it’s an album that remains poised and impending, balanced by majestic composition and a patient anticipation for demolishing everything it builds. Exhausted, ‘Insatiable Two’ lulls the album to a close with a final flourish of victorious anthemic defiance. It might be two steps back and one giant step forward, but this is progression nonetheless.
Follow once more...
- - -
A full feature on Trail of Dead will run in issue 36 of Clash magazine.
Read our thoughts on the band’s seminal ‘Source Tags & Codes’ LP HERE.
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
