...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Albums (7)
'The Century of Self'
Release Date 1/1/2009
Tracks 13
Label Superball
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
On the surface, The Century of Self is more than a little similar to ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's previous two albums, Worlds Apart and So Divided: The songs' sounds and scopes are of epic proportions, and just as high concept as the band's previous work, if not more so -- the album takes its name from an acclaimed BBC documentary, and war and religion are just some of the heady topics it tackles. However, The Century of Self sounds liberated where Worlds Apart and So Divided often seemed labored. This is no coincidence. The Century of Self is the Trail of Dead's first album for their own Richter Scale label after a troubled stint on Interscope, and the first album the band has recorded without a click track since their breakthrough Source Tags & Codes. The Festival Thyme EP hinted that this album would be ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's freest, most fiery work in some time, and two of its songs reappear here. "Bells of Creation," with its striding, pounding piano and well-placed power chords, feels like a spiritual cousin to the Who's "Love Reign O'er Me," while "Inland Sea" underscores how organic and graceful the band's interplay is when it's not shackled to a click track. Most excitingly for longtime fans, the Trail of Dead's punk roots show up just as loud and proud as their prog rock ambitions -- the excellent "Ascending" has the dual vocal attack, guitar onslaughts, and smart passion that Source Tags & Codes had in spades. Meanwhile, "Isis Unveiled" blends that sound with Celtic-tinged strings (a book written by singer/guitarist Conrad Keely's Irish Nationalist grandfather was a major influence on the album), and "Far Pavilions" is a perfect example of the band's flair for giving raw-sounding songs titles that should be graced with Roger Dean artwork. As much of a return to form as The Century of Self is, it still falls prey to some of the pitfalls that bogged down So Divided and Worlds Apart. The Trail of Dead still aren't big on nuance: "Giants Causeway" opens The Century of Self at a fevered pitch that continues until "Luna Park" begins the album with a string of ballads that, when taken together, feel nearly as exhausting as the first half's wall-to-wall rockers. The interlude "An August Theme" and "Insatiable (One)" and "Insatiable (Two)" feel fussy and overly theatrical in comparison to the more powerful songs that surround them, and on songs like "Pictures of an Only Child," emotions get hidden behind gargantuan arrangements and dynamic shifts. Nevertheless, this album offers the Trail of Dead's best balance of heart-on-sleeve outbursts and orchestrated bombast in some time, and it's the band's most cohesive, satisfying music since Source Tags & Codes. As they sing on "Luna Park," "in order to live, it's gotta be free," and The Century of Self is compelling proof that the only way a band as fiercely ambitious, righteous, and single-minded as ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead can do things is on their own. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'So Divided'
Release Date 11/13/2006
Tracks 11
Label Universal/Polydor
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What The Critics Say
Disappointed by the less-than-strong sales of their previous album, Worlds Apart, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead almost called it quits. Instead, they rebounded by entering the studio for what they intended to be a quick EP, which blossomed into their fifth full-length, So Divided. Worlds Apart was an intensive labor of love that sometimes crossed the line between ambitious and overwrought, but the frustration that fueled this album also gives it focus and vitality. So Divided is a noticeably leaner and more focused collection of songs, mostly stripped of the interludes and preludes of Worlds Apart ("Intro: A Song of Fire and Wine" and "Segue: Sunken Dreams" are the only nods to that album's elaborate structure), but it still operates on a grand scale. The defiant, widescreen rocker "Stand in Silence" -- which rages against writer's block -- is just as anthemic in its quieter passages as it is in its bolder moments, while the title track, with its galloping tempo and surging guitars, feels like a fresher take on the drama of Source Tags & Codes. Along with quintessentially Trail of Dead songs like these, So Divided also finds the band experimenting with very different sounds. "Naked Sun" begins as swaggering, off-the-cuff blues, takes a detour through brass, and then expands into a majestic symphonic section. "Eight Days of Hell" is a subversively perky, poppy track that begins with a drum intro straight out of the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" and ends up sounding like Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys with a better-developed sense of irony. After the often-overcooked experiments on Worlds Apart, hearing AYWKUBTTOD apply their restless creativity in a variety of ways on So Divided is especially refreshing, whether it's the mix of Polynesian percussion and accordions on "Wasted State of Mind"; the Stones-y, pedal steel-driven ballad "Witch's Web"; or the intricately layered production that unites these songs. Interestingly, one of So Divided's most lavish tracks ends up being its weakest. Guided by Voices' "Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory"'s melody already suggested swelling strings and soaring backing vocals in all its tinny, four-track glory on Bee Thousand, so the Trail of Dead's cover -- which actually adds the strings and vocals -- ends up sounding not much more impressive than the original. While it's not really a throwaway, it's not quite up to the level of the album's original songs, and probably would've been a better fit had it remained an EP. Nevertheless, So Divided's remarkable balance between the band's grandeur and power makes it far from a disappointment. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead have always been an ambitious, and difficult to place, band. They're too earnest and fond of grand gestures to fit in with most of the indie rock world, but too arty and obscure to jell with most emo's heart-on-sleeve directness. On Worlds Apart, they remain hard to classify, except on their own terms. Though the Trail of Dead sound as angry, regretful, and hopeful as they did when they started, this is a much more polished album than their breakthrough, Source Tags & Codes, and their fiery sound is tempered by nods to '70s prog and album rock. The band deserves some credit for attempting to work on such a grand scale -- it's all too easy for this kind of big, passionate statement to fall on its face -- but while Worlds Apart doesn't work entirely, enough of it is compelling. Granted, it doesn't have the most promising beginning: "Ode to Isis," with its Wagnerian choral vocals, pianos, violins, screaming, and crying, is equally worrying and intriguing, and "Will You Smile Again?" doesn't really take off until the six-and-a-half-minute mark. However, the next four tracks rank among the Trail of Dead's best work: despite railing against vacuous celebrities, soccer moms, indie rock, and, of course, post-9/11 fallout and the war on terrorism, the emotions behind "Worlds Apart" are timeless; along with the frustrated idealism of "The Rest Will Follow," it's one of the band's finest anthems. "The Summer of '91"'s thundering timpani rolls and slow-building majesty use Worlds Apart's massive-sounding productions and arrangements artfully; it's been a long time -- possibly since Smashing Pumpkins' heyday -- since a band has attempted this kind of epic-scale, orchestrated rock. Speaking of the Pumpkins, "Caterwaul"'s beautifully droning guitar grind is more than a little reminiscent of that band's best rockers. Worlds Apart's second half dives deeper into prog: "A Classic Arts Showcase" and "All White" both feature soulful choirs that sound like they were transplanted directly from The Wall, but while they feel tacked onto the former song, they fit -- in a retro kind of way -- the latter song's excesses. "To Russia My Homeland," a theatrical, string-based waltz, isn't bad at all, although it seems more suited to a soundtrack than this album. It's tempting to want to hear some of these songs, particularly "The Best" and "Lost City of Refuge," delivered in a less grandiose manner, but the band's attack on complacency extends to its own music, and Worlds Apart scores points for not having merely revisited previous successes. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'Source Tags & Codes'
Release Date 2/26/2002
Tracks 11
Label Interscope
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What The Critics Say
Intricate and reflective as well as gripping and raw, Source Codes & Tags marks And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's leap from the venerable indie imprint Merge to Interscope's major-label territory. It's a seamless transition, mixing the sweeping, fearlessly anthemic qualities of their previous work with a newfound sheen that actually makes the music's earnest roughness stand out more. Sculpted, gorgeous-yet-gritty melodies drive quintessentially AYWKUBTTOD epics like "Another Morning Stoner," "How Near, How Far," "Relative Ways," and the title track. But Source Codes & Tags isn't so much a more accessible version of the band's sound as it is a more streamlined one; the surging guitars on songs like "It Was There That I Saw You" are even more powerful for their economy. Yet the album's more refined sound doesn't prevent the group from expanding and experimenting -- driven by a stomping rhythm and a raunchy riff, the dangerously sexy "Baudelaire" is the most straightforwardly "rawk" thing And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead has done to date, while "Days of Being Wild" and "Homage" mix old-school hardcore with sullen, dreamlike passages. The band hasn't forsaken its artiness, either, linking nearly every song with interludes of found sounds and adding strings, accordions, and other unique flourishes to the arrangements. A driving, incredibly solid album, Source Tags & Codes proves just how much more the members of AYWKUBTTOD have to say -- they're just as combustible as they were on their debut, but now express themselves with a clarity that makes their intensity all the more breathtaking. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead'
Release Date 1/20/1998
Tracks 8
Label Trance
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What The Critics Say
Labeled as "anti-musicians," named after a prayer to Mayan corn gods, and cause for press releases describing it as "set upon by rednecks," ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead vies for that piece of scarred, post-punk real estate somewhere between the Who and chucking a whirring blender full of bolts straight into a jet engine. With this self-titled debut, the band will probably horrify the realtors. From moments of diversionary electronic tweaks to ones of shambolic, guitar-thrashed screeches (and sometimes both), the album realizes the importance of not trying to be important. The sound of bashing out unconventional "we hate something that we'll make sure to mumble" punk rock without parroting any one musical thing is what -- if anything -- ties these eight songs together. And for good reason. Few bands can sound like such a rightful mess. The band has been lumped in with fellow rock unapologists Queens of the Stone Age and At the Drive-In, but this self-titled debut album is a caustic, fidgety yelp that almost belies its out-and-out intelligence. One of the band's news stories might have said it best: "The band defended themselves with their instruments, which are now destroyed." ~ Dean Carlson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead are an established gonzoid rock band that scoff in the face of conventional measures and boldly go where no band has gone before so scrappily, so consistently, so loudly. A gaggle of Pearl-fueled Texans from Austin, these boys have steadily built an unthreatened reputation as America's most unapologetically destructive rock & roll experience, replete with the shameless disposal of musical machinery onstage and -- to the untrained ear -- in the studio as well. The have a system, and it does not fail. Their music is an ear-splitting sendup of feedback and crash-on-the-racetrack riffs, which draws heavily from the era of Sonic Youth's Sister, while their lyrics call to mind a marriage between horror-movie moments with op-ed-page cynicism; "Mark David Chapman" is an example of such campy outrage. At a point wherein Sonic Youth has achieved little more than short-curve hairpin experimentation, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead are fueled with a zestier and more intrusive desire to split instrumental hairs. The instruments are interestingly distinct, defining a need to listen to the individual contributions, furthering the contemplative nature of late-'90s hard rock and its idiosyncratically conservative send-ups. The Dead are a max-out outfit in the true hardcore tradition. ~ Becky Byrkit, All Music Guide
