Artist: And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Label: Century Media
Release: 2011
Length: 52:22
Rating: 4.9/5
No, they haven’t fallen asleep on the laurels of past glory and the praise heaped on their six albums so far, all of them rated pretty impressively. Just two years after the incredible The Century Of Self, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead are back in an even better version. Tao Of The Dead is really just the tip of the iceberg: beneath the surface of melancholic indie and alternative-sworn sonic landscapes hides a grandiose stucco work that opens up the spirit as well as the most stubbornly closed ear canals and brains. This time around, Trail Of The Dead reached for the visually and thematically expanded writings of their conceptual architect and mastermind, singer and guitarist Conrad Keely, and set his novella Strange News From Another Planet – The Voyages Of The Festival Thyme to music. The result of channeling truly exceptional creative impulses is an imaginarium of orchestrally mighty and sexually charged prog rock, but let’s take it from the top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vWIrbwXrAY
The Austin-based alternative four-piece Trail Of Dead are known above all for their energetic live shows and the many lineup changes around the dual core of the band, the Jason Reece – Conrad Keely duo (the latter formerly known as Conrad Sobsamai). Those changes kept the band’s inner dynamic alive, but this time the lineup shrinks from a lush sextet down to a core quartet. Last November the band announced on their website that the reduction of musical firepower, the trimming of the excess tissue that was Jay Phillips and Clay Morris, and the farewell to longtime guitarist Kevin Allen were all in service of musical evolution, a new bloom and the next step into the unknown. Bassist Autry Fulbright II and drummer Jamie Miller step into the vacated spots. The band turns a new chapter in their book of creation with the conceptual design of Tao Of Dead. This seventh studio effort is the cherry on top of 18 years of making music. If the band’s name is already wrapped in a veil of mystery, the heart of this journey is complete heathen abandon. The basis of the record is, as said, the novella Strange News From Another Planet – The Voyages Of The Festival Thyme. We find ourselves aboard an air galleon on its way from Hildepess to Gaslight City, under the baton of the alchemy-obsessed Captain Nathaniel Ponsonby. The world, where flying whales slowly sail across the sky, glows in seemingly calm hues. In the library, a young passenger named Adsel pores over the thick, dusty writings of the aeronauts, but in this fairy-tale universe a turn into a chaos of intrigues, slaughter and conspiracies is looming, one that could upset the balance in the Heliosphere and shatter the peace of the celestial ring. The young lad overhears all this by pure chance. Will anyone believe him? Will Mr. Turk, the evil fox-headed agitator of Lord Hanowan, manage to steal the sacred stone of the Fairlight? Will destruction and war follow the world? Those are just some of the questions answered by Tao Of The Dead, which is divided thematically (and musically too) into two self-contained halves, recorded and written by Trail Of Dead in a record-short ten days. Don’t be afraid: the youngsters haven’t switched over to some Taoist school in search of the meaning (or meanings) of life. In a twisted, mentally restless way, their storytelling is closer to comic-book imagery than to the profound detours of philosophy. Tao Of Dead is closer to Henry Miller on magic mushrooms. So is it all just a mindfuck and a slide into the generic trap of art-for-art’s-sake?
There was once a time when pop culture, artistry and the search for the perfect expression of creative libido naturally went hand in hand. Then came a period of oblivion, and after oblivion you have to air out the channels and move into a state of total experimentation. Sixteen tracks sound exactly as if you threw Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon into the same generator of ravings and visions, added a pinch of Genesis, Rush and the feel of Yes, and the uninterrupted whole takes the form of a symphony. The guitars are brushes that lay fresh layers of crimson and LSD onto already thick textures, yet everything you hear is served up tastefully and with a style that always keeps the door open to full-on apocalypse. Clusters of melody dissolve in hurricanes of noise and intense sensuality.
Trail Of Dead can be compared, both in ideas and in music, to the inspiration of Wilson’s Porcupine Tree, the jazzy boldness of Beardfish and the artistic sweep of The Mars Volta. Tao Of The Dead is one of the more sophisticated releases of the past few years. Concept and music develop side by side, and with this record the band opens doors into new, unimagined dimensions. For a four-piece with such strong conceptual guidelines, they still sound organic and tightly knit, as if we were witnessing an hour-long handover of collective jamming and the pursuit of the purest, most unspoiled flash of inspiration. The central focus isn’t politics or world-weariness but heart, even if it’s misunderstood after just one listen. Inspiring, epic, aesthetically accomplished and inspired down to the last fiber: that and a whole lot more is what the seventh album from the Texan alternative crew, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, brings. With this epic they’ve built themselves a monumental dividing line that will be hard to cross in one go. As for whether the name is dishing up another throaty, rough-hewn piece of junk, you’ll have to take our word for it until you check the record out with your own ears. Trail Of Dead are the musical messiahs of a new order of artistic genius, and we can only hope it lasts.
Line-up
Conrad Keely – vocals, guitar, drums, piano
Jason Reece – drums, vocals, guitar
Autry Fulbright II – bass, vocals
Jamie Miller – drums, guitar
Guest musicians:
– Christina, Velia Gurrola & Chris “Frenchie” Smith – backing vocals
– Chris “Frenchie” Smith – additional guitar
Production
Chris “Frenchie” Smith & Chris Coady
Tracklist
1. Introduction: Let’s Experiment
2. Pure Radio Cosplay
3. Summer of All Dead Souls
4. Cover the Days Like a Tidal Wave
5. Fall of the Empire
6. The Wasteland
7. The Spiral Jetty
8. Weight of the Sun (or the Post-Modern Prometheus)
9. Pure Radio Cosplay (Reprise)
10. Ebb Away
11. The Fairlight Pendant
12. Tao of the Dead Part II: Strange News From Another Planet
– Know Your Honor
– Rule by Being Just
– The Ship Impossible
– Strange Epiphany
– Racing and Hunting
