...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. C/D?

???

hardly. they were one of the most irritating live bands i've seen for (a) INCREDIBLY tedious instrument trashing and (b) almost as tedious instrument swapping and (c) sounding like a damp rag hitting a pole in comparison to their records

And what's with all the bitching about BRMC? Honestly, they do the JAMC better than the JAMC! They're hardly the most orginal band around, but I would much rather listen to their debut than to "PsychoCandy".

At least the Reids' vocal boredom was somehow compelling.

And they're still outdone by their imitators.

(This is exactly what a lot of people feel when they hear lots of the music I like, and since then I've become less hostile to that viewpoint I hope, even though I agree with it even less too.)~

i was thinking about replying along those lines exactly but decided not to because i do not really know all the music you like... but i guess it all has to do with the subjective way people perceive music (sounds like a banality, but i don't know how to put it differently right now)

"The problem of boredom in alt.rock music is probably just the problem of me noticing boredom in alt.rock music more easily. (That's the generous interpretation, anyway). I don't hear musicians expressing anything much, and I don't feel much need to express anything much back, since all I do hear is musicians wrestling with structures. If the structures are new enough to you then you might get a jolt anyway - the rock you like best is the rock you hear first, in other words, which makes rating individual bands a bit pointless.

But isn't wrestling with structures interesting anyway? I don't know - when I was writing the first sentence of this I put "(b-dum b-dum)" after "boredom" as a nod to the Buzzcocks and then I took it out because it didn't do anything other than prove I'd heard the Buzzcocks. Most of what I hear in this music is a succession of similarly petty micro-choices. I can imagine someone settling for that, but I can't imagine anyone being satisfied with it."

as for me, i like the wrestling bit... rather, it doesn't really sound like wrestling to me. i (think i) hear musicians 'evolving'. to me, source tags & codes is a clear step forward from madonna... (aaah, we could go on like this for ages i guess) (this may all sound like i take a band like ...and you will etc. very serious... i don't, actually. but that doesn't mean i am not interested in their music)

(With pop of course there is an obvious motive - they want to make lots of money and be famous!)

(I do like perfect execution yes, the word 'perfect' sort of implies liking for me :) But that's not what I'm talking about - Trail of Dead sound very proficient at what they do, I just can't detect any reason for them to do it.)

just for the record i think guns'n'roses are a crime against music. ten years from now i will probably think the same of trail of dead.

The idea of someone getting a thrill from this band suddenly seemed like the most depressing notion in the world - it was an eye-opener because as I say that's exactly the kind of "why do people tolerate such nothingness?" reaction some people have to R&B, say. The aesthetic choices and mental steps needed to really love a Trail of Dead record suddenly seemed to me to be hopelessly alien. And to be fair that reaction hasn't really recurred since to other things, which is why I'm stumbling about trying to put my finger on it.

Willem I dont make it to the Netherlands much no!

I saw them twice live and found them hilarious in Chris Katan (sp?) kinda way, but Madonna bores the tits off me. Haven't paid attention in the last couple years, tho.

I feel slightly ashamed for saying that Trail Of Dead's new album 'The Century Of Self' is really good. Where did it all go right?

Definitely a huuuuge stretch to say its "all" gone right, this is another extremely patchy album by the band. Some definite high points, but its also a really bloated and overlong disc. Par for the course, really.

Hmm. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that; IMO it's really pop-proggy and has stadium ambitions (Jane's Addiction, Manics) but there isn't really a bad song on it. I bet this is what Billy Corgan imagines his music sounds like.

I'm not a fan of them by any stretch of the imagination either although they were always pretty good live.

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of DUD, amirite?

Been listening to The Century Of Self a lot lately, after seeing a really scorching great live show of them last week. I think it's a really solid album, definitely their best since Source Tags And Codes (and I even like Worlds Apart a lot, too).

century of self is fuckin ace. worlds apart is fuckin ace too. source tags is my favourite album of the 21st century thus far. i fuckin love the trail of dead.

"Mistakes And Regrets" and "How Near How Far" are both pretty outstanding.

I wasn't impressee by the new record.

impressed*

source tags was simply one hell of a record. definitely some grand ambitions at play, but the whole thing just scorches from start to finish. some really affecting sweeping guitar lines and a consistently focused quota of rock - there are a good 6 or 7 tracks on here that are real keepers. i think it genuinely feels like an important and exciting record, something that the arcade fire aspire to but have never pulled off with any great conviction.

I've always suspected that the hate that greeted the post-Source Tags albums is because some people feel betrayed when their loud bands trade in angst for drama. Sure, World's Apart isn't the album that Source Tags is, but it's not remotely a 4 to STAC's 10; that's such obvious knee-jerk backlash.

I am liking this on first listen :-/

"bells of creation" and "luna park" are REALLY good....the entire midsection of this album is startlingly proficient music....while retaining a slight whiff of artless bedwetter sturm und drang....but who cares tbh

Just cos RS is about, I'll bump...have been listening to these guys (basically the three albums RS mentions) obsessively over the past 2 days...have little to add except that their noise, although crude, obvious, and often very simplistic, is utterly arresting, and somehow completely self-justifying. In other words, glorious. There's just something singular enough about this band to make them work like a dream, something in their *slightly* skewhiff, eccentric approach to song-structure, their humour, their pointed miniaturisation (and acceleration) of the epic. And all the while, it's crude! And artless! And great!

i like their songs

yah tbh this is the nub of it

really wish "heart in the hand of the matter" reprised its chorus at the end tho...that song's my fave on ST&C regardless but dammit man dammit you can't just write a chorus so freaking epic and then not reprise it after the middle eight yeah i see you're trying to be restrained and maintain some sort of suspenseful album narrative but jesus couldn't you have just given us that chorus again, just once

"will you smile again", on the other hand, is pretty much perfect and brilliant and oh shit that song...the use of jazz trumpet is completely inspired and really frames the song's mood in an unusual, slightly crazed place, whence the resulting build is much more interesting, effective, and unique

"will you smile again", on the other hand, is pretty much perfect...

Except I really wish there was an extended version where the closing barrage of riffage went on for another 20 minutes.

That is the last perfect song they did.

i like "Life" a lot. the piano is sultry & nimble. it's the only song in their catalog i would call sexy. is it perfect? i don't know. i don't really try to identify perfection, but to my ears it stands up against any of their songs.

'another morning stoner' remains the most definitive and important statement the band made for me. i remember getting a bit of a thrill when i first heard it and being particularly touched by the knockout punch of its closing bars. this band really manages to encapsulate huge sounds effectively.

Jesus, I'm completely obsessing over "Luna Park"...I think for all my bluster about progression and surprise, I'm still a total sucker for a neat build, a killer key-change, a tempo-alteration, pounding piano and skyscraper guitars, especially if they're all deployed at once

<3 trail of dead <3

just so fuckin wildly awesome. unreal.

Lol every time at

Kids: Yaaayyyy!
Conrad: Hey fuck you man!
Kids: Hahahaha!

That song is so lazy compared to what they did up till then.

The recent albums are vv different from the mid-period stuff, somehow both proggier and much more disciplined

not to mention way less vocal/lyric-driven than before, a good move imo

Yeah I'm going to check out the most recent again for sure.

their cover art is totally hilarious

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61jr9gk8r1L.jpg

It looks like the cover art of a bad steam-punk themed RPG for Dreamcast.

a new 12-book fantasy sci-fi series for middle-grades readers

Yeah I can't defend that cover. The album's really good though.

What's to defend? As gt says, it's hilarious.

Re: Crowning of a Heart - not to be that guy, but I like the demo better:

https://youtu.be/OWNh1LOUxx8

Oh that's great! I didn't know it existed. At first it sounded a bit too shy, but once it started picking up I realized why it can be preferable.

um

the new album is *fucking amazing*

first half of it at least

anticipating some sort of extra-ludicrous blowout format for album 10

I like hearing this band's name to the melody of the first line of the verse of Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears

do these guys still smash all their equipment at the end of every show?

yep, the new album still rules

i even like the second half now

Saw them perform for the first time yesterday, even though I've been listening to them since the early 00's. Fantastic show, they seemed to be having a really good time, too. Lots of personal favourites were played:

The Opening Crescendo
All Who Wander
It Was There That I Saw You
Into the Godless Void
Isis Unveiled
Don't Look Down
Children of the Sky
How Near How Far
Bells of Creation
Let It Dive
Worlds Apart
Weight of the Sun (Or the Post-Modern Prometheus)
Ebb Away
Homage
Clair de Lune
Caterwaul
Will You Smile Again?
Relative Ways
Mistakes & Regrets
Another Morning Stoner

They came back for an encore, think it was a song from the last album (possibly "Blade of Wind").

The sound was good? I saw them on the Madonna anniversary tour and the mix was atrocious, but I'd love to give them another crack live.

Yeah I heard about sound issues during last year's ST&C "jubilee" tour. Yesterday's sound/mix was great - I even thought the volume could've been cranked up a bit but that was easily solved by getting closer to the stage. I'd say give it a go if you get the chance!

They broke up?

Conrad Keely announced via an Instagram post in March 2023 that "the Trail is closed", and later clarified that the band had no plans to either tour nor make any more music in the traditional sense, citing a disastrous final tour, exhaustion, and the inhospitable state of the music industry towards smaller bands as the main drivers behind their decision.[2]

Their last tour does sound like a nightmare: https://www.patreon.com/posts/73901821

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Are all the trail of dead fans on holiday? I'm going through their whole catalogue (albums anyway), two to go. Do they have a bad album? No. Do they have a nadir? Absolutely not, fuck you pitchfork. Do they have a bad song? I'm not sure that they do. Astonishing band, incredible body of work. Why didn't I try and see them live? (I did once, at an ATP, I don't think I saw a proper tour, lol my memory). RIP.

OK yeah it was just my phone at the time.

I've listened to XI half a dozen times over the last few days, it's absolutely one of their best. As grandiose and prog as anything they've done but not unleavened with humour (fuck the potatoes!), a dash of punk, a flirting with psych / krautrock. 22 songs, impeccably sequenced, no duds, nothing superfluous.

That ATP show was pretty amazing all told, I only saw them a couple of times outside that including a really early show (I think the s/t had just come out, or was about to) where they were pretending to trash their kit at the end of the set and a guy got up on stage and actually did push all the amps over, which led to a giant fist fight between the band, their roadies, and some of the crowd.

lolll i saw them in new york once where they “trashed” their gear and i remember thinking that i would know them by the trail of unimpressed roadies

I've been a fan the whole ride, really bummed if this is truly it for them but that tour does sound rough. The only time I caught the, live was at Lollapalooza one year when they played early in the day's blistering heat but they still put on a killer set.

i was technically brother-in-law to their touring guitar tech for a while and he had some wild war stories from the road. this was back in the late 2000s-early 2010s.

one for the "when you like the wrong album" thread: i will always have a soft spot for the worlds apart and so divided material. even though i don't know the whole catalogue that well, i have to agree with ledge in that i've always been impressed by their consistency. crazy the amount of hype they had at one point.