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Underground > Radio & Music >

And you shall know them by the trail of dead.... on MP3.com

13:53 / 27.02.02

The site has totally gone corporate, but there are still surprises... like this page, I found from one of their spam mailouts.
www.mp3.com/theTrailofDea

It has a *lot* of songs on it.

- g

14:40 / 27.02.02

Well Trail of Dead have gone corporate too, signed to a major and that.

Speaking of which .. WHERE THE FUCK'S THEIR ALBUM?

It was supposed to come out on Monday, but I looked in every single record shop in Leicester today and couldn't find it anywhere..

I don't have a problem with their signing to a major as such (just a little cautious, that's all), but if they start dicking around the release dates and fucking delaying things to fit in with fucking singles or tours or whatever to catch maximum first week sales an' shit THEN I'M GONNA HAVE A RIOT OUTSIDE HMV!

(there's some new/never-before-seen songs on that webpage too. I wish i had a computer that did music. bah.)

[ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: Rizla Year Zero ]

14:45 / 27.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
Well Trail of Dead have gone corporate too, signed to a major and that.

Interesting.

Thanks a lot for the link grant. Should make the work day go by a little easier.

19:50 / 27.02.02

It's out 4th March. Definitely looking forward to this one lots!

Matthew Fluxington

02:57 / 28.02.02

It's a very good record, too - I'm not really into their other records, but Source Tags and Codes is really something special. Especially the title track - that song just floors me in a way that I never really would have expected from this band. I wrote this about it on my blog:

quote: The song sounds as if it exists in a world permanently frozen in suburban US alt-rock 1993 - but is aware of that fact, and secretly does not mind being stuck there at all. It's sorta like Sonic Youth if they had only ever released Goo and Dirty, and Thurston was the only member of the band who sang. It's not exactly a nostalgic song, it's more romantic than anything else - the epic sweep of the guitar lines, stings, and clunky-sounding piano makes me think of it being like the soundtrack to the final scene of a period piece set in the early 90s, like an old film from the 40s, but the film is about Superchunk or something. In some ways, it reminds me of "Shoot The Singer" by Pavement, which I've always described as being a romantic song about romantic notions, a beautiful picture of a past that never really happened. Ha, and of course, "Shoot The Singer" on the Watery, Domestic EP was released in 1993.

The other song that I really quite like is "It Was There That I Saw You"...

Oh, obviously, the whole album is up on Audiogalaxy -- it's been there for many weeks now.

[ 28-02-2002: Message edited by: Flux = Expert Textpert ]

05:40 / 02.03.02

i know i'm spending too much time a home when i only know of a local band cause of the buzz. this written friday night, drunk home by my self. hmmmm...

Jack The Bodiless

11:54 / 02.03.02

Really looking forward to this one...

Regarding the corporate thing... when are people going to let this sad faux-punk thing go?!

Everything's owned by everyone else. Look at Radiohead, tying themselves in right-on knots over advertising and patronising patronage - while being owned wholesale by a multinational. You want your music to reach people, on a practical level? You've got to compromise. Reality. Deal with it.

AYWKUBTTOD have recently gone on record as saying that U2 are their 'business' role models (underground band becomes ha-YUGE and gets voice on the world stage), and that they want to be as big as the Rolling Stones. Please - no kneejerk anti-corporate bile - what do you think? Is it possible for a band with their principles to retain them should they ever reach such commercial heights (hypothetically, as I'm unconvinced they ever will) ? Does compromise preclude credibility? Discuss?

21:33 / 02.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:

AYWKUBTTOD have recently gone on record as saying that U2 are their 'business' role models

kill me.

or tell me they were joking.

Signing to a major is ok, as you point out above, but it's kinda part of the deal that the band then have to hate them and bitch all the time about how they hate making videos and doing promotional tours and suchlike. And not start talking about 'business role models'.

Seriously, that quote's lowered the band somewhat in my estimation. I'm a sad bastard, aren't I?

I'll forgive them if the album's really good.

17:20 / 03.03.02

Trail of Dead do seem to have a fairly good friendship with U2. I remember reading an interview in which they quoted Bono as giving them some of the best advice they'd ever had:

"Don't give people what they want - give them what you want."

To be honest, I think Trail of Dead are too tricky to easily fit into the standard "major label bad, fiercely independent good" limitations. I can imagine them using that "we always said we were sluts and liars" defense pretty soon...

20:39 / 03.03.02

Just got the record, via AG, and it's quite different from what I expected. Have read and heard about them, but not actually heard them yet. Based on the people I know who've done shows with them, I fugured Trail Of Dead would be a little more, uh, crappy semi-ambient goth. They certainly have a lot more rock than I expected.

But I like the record and I agree with Flux in that there's a lot of indie-rock precedents at work here. I hear Pavement and Slint primarily - as much as I liked this one it really just made me want to listen to Spiderland. That's not really a dig at the band, just a whim.

I doubt these guys, as they are now, really have what commercial radio demands. I can't see them achieving the kind of saturation necessary for U2-like success. But then, U2 didn't have that in 1981, either...

I have to say that compromise does preclude musical credibility. It's all well and good for Bono to talk about giving people what Bono wants, but I don't buy it. (But then, I don't buy his records, either.) Either you want music or you want dollars. If Trail of Dead want dollars, that's fine, but it just means that I probably won't like their records for very long. I like Spiderland and the fact that this record reminds me of Slint is good, but lack of marketing isn't the only reason a Slint or Pavement never sold 8 bajillion records.

13:42 / 04.03.02

I just finished the first listen of the album..

initial thoughts:

fucking hell, it's pretty awesome... the first few tracks had me jumping around and punching the air .. but the sound is just kind of (wait for it) too intense .. by about halfway through the album, my circuits were completely blown and it just sort of faded into a very noisy background, with the lyrics completely submerged in the murk .. and there's just, like, no let up at all in the crushing noise - even when the guitar's stop for a bit, they still hit you with a blast of strings or trumpets - definately not an album that's big on subtlety.

So good, on the whole. I'll doubtless get into it as I listen to it more.

And isn't the artwork lovely? Says in the sleevenotes that Jason, Conrad and some other guy did it all .. the multi-talented buggers.

[ 04-03-2002: Message edited by: Rizla Year Zero ]

10:05 / 05.03.02

The artwork is stunning. I could look at this inlay for hours.

The music rules. The thrill of recognition when It Was There That I Saw You started made me wanna leap about and act like all uninhibited. Wicked record - I'll be listening to this a lot.

12:01 / 06.03.02

Reconsideration – I love this album!

It’s quite varied, but it manages to cover all bases really well…

'It Was There That I Saw You' is like Mudhoney being forced to play at gunpoint, their performance deciding the fate of the free world..

'Another Morning Stoner' is absolutely beautiful My Bloody valentine/Sonic Youth inspired fuzz-psychedelia..

'Baudelaire' is a heartfelt rant about nihilism, despair and the death of hope, cunningly disguised as an FM radio rock anthem – not alike the Manics at their prime.

'Homage' is the most furious blast of heavy metal catharsis I’ve heard in ages.. with a wicked detuned guitar solo..

'How Near How Far' is a classic baroque love song, pitched somewhere between Nick Cave and Pavement..

'Heart in the hand of the Matter' and 'Monsoon' are the kind of convincing goth epics that the likes of Marilyn Manson and Nine inch nails *WISH* they were good enough to pull off.. (though putting them one after the other in the centre of the album is pretty punishing)

And if you’ve noticed a fair number of clichés in the above descriptions, who cares? The brilliant thing about ..Trail of Dead is the way they can take lyrics and musical ideas which would be absolutely pompous and laughable in the hands of a lesser band and convey them with such passion and momentum that they become profound and blinding and intense (again, a bit like the Manics) .. may the dark gods bless them!

Jack The Bodiless

12:19 / 06.03.02

Fuck signing to a major... they should just get you to sell the album, Riz...

13:21 / 06.03.02

(Well at least I wouldn't have put the release back a week just for the hell of it..)

Locust No longer

19:04 / 06.03.02

I've only heard the album once and it didn't really hit me that hard. However, it did have that great energy that I love. While I don't want to sound like one of those prententious record nerd types who always know about "that other band that's so much better blah blah blah" there's a band working the same bombastic territory with a lot more variety named Kill Sadie who I do like a lot better, and deserve a much bigger audience. They're on Dim Mak records, a small DIY label, and they sort of sound like a combination between the new radiohead, and Refused with the energy of early Black Flag. Maybe I will change my opinion of AYWKUBTTOTD if I hear the new album more.

[ 06-03-2002: Message edited by: Locustcrashsthorax ]