It'd be safe to say that bands grow and mature with age just as people do—taking what they learn from experience and hopefully applying it to each new experience [album] with an approach that's more productive, more positive. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead has come a long way since their debut nine years ago. Their sixth recording, So Divided is, at the least, an impressive maturation for an ever-growing rock band and, at most, a lovely crowning achievement of songs—songs in which this band has undoubtedly applied both life and musical lessons to create a more fulfilling experience for themselves and their fans.
Should you listen to the band’s previous records, the progression from 1.) hellions with instruments setting out to break every rule, to 2.) adventurous-but-rebellious musicians wanting to write good songs, to 3.) cunning songwriters staying a step ahead of anything predictable, to 4.) a band able to focus on making the chaotic beautiful and vice versa is impressive. On this new LP, they quiet down enough to listen to their own souls, and realize it's not so bad to write a melody.
"There are a lot of harmonies and melodies that we haven't really ever done on past records," band member Jason Reece concurs. "It's a darker record lyrically, but musically there's a bit of this weird upbeat-ness to it. It's a very epic-sounding record at times, too. You have moments when you think the song is kind of one-dimensional at first, then it explodes and turns into this lush, sort of huge, epic piece of work."
Don't be led astray folks, TOD has not lost their deconstructionist edge. They start the new record off with one of those tiny "intro" tracks (titled, aptly enough, “Intro: A Song of Fire and Wine”) consisting of some atmospheric sounds of a growing crowd mixed with isolated guitar melodies which build to an orchestral march full of tympanis and strings. This leads right into "Stand In Silence," in which they wedge that same, quietly brewing, orchestral piece into the middle of an otherwise accessible, pre-emo melodic guitar-driven affair. Other tracks carry the same signature TOD unpredictability, even in the wake of their getting introspective...and perhaps even, for them, a little mellow.
"It was definitely a choice to like do something different," Reece explained. "We always try to change with each record; we're never going be the same band. Every record will always be something sonically different. I understand that [listeners] are either open-minded and ready to go where each new record takes them, or they want the same shit from the same band. But I've never liked that."
Perhaps the process of using all band members' songs and input is what keeps TOD's songs multi-dimensional. "There are many writers and many people with ideas," says Reece. "And Doni [Schroader] and Danny [Wood], who have been with us the last few years (joining founding members Conrad Keely,Kevin Allen and Reece), contributed greatly to the record -- and even our producer Mike McCarthy was pretty integral to the writing process."
They play with bluesy guitar and rhythms on "Naked Sun," get Bowie-esque on "Life," and on the stand-out track "Wasted State Of Mind," (featuring King Crimson drummer Pat Mastellotto) they get tribal on the drums, get moody with piano melodies, and deliver some of the strongest vocal parts of their career. Further into the LP, they break down into a ballad on "Witches Web," and even get a little jangly on "Eight Day Hell," sounding like a marriage of Jellyfish and XTC. Of their grand, sweeping cover of Guided By Voices "Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" Reece says, "The original is like a sketch, so we decided to make this sort of crazy, colorful painting out of the song." The album closes out with a prog-rock journey called "Segue: In The Realms Of the Unreal" and the dark, The Cure-meets-Afghan Whigs brooder "Sunken Dream," which Reece says is "a real heavy, raucous sort of poem about desperation."
The band is on the road in support of the album. "Out indefinitely, we're going to ruin all our lives once again!" Reece chuckles.
~ Penelope Biver
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http://www.trailofdead.com
...And You will Know Us By The Trail of Dead's album So Divided is out now on Interscope Records.
Buy Album from CD Universe
