New Music Tuesday!
I need to take a second to just mention how fucking cool my friends are. Because I’m kind of a jackass, I reviewed Bomb the Music Industry!’s Get Warmer like two weeks before their new album hit, and I don’t want to double up on bands I’ve reviewed so soon, so I had no idea what to review for today (Scrambles is awesome, by the way, and if you enjoyed my review of Get Warmer or you’re a fan of BTMI, pick it up). Not sure of what to do, I mentioned on Twitter that I was in need of an album. Within minutes, I had a message from my friend Bryan with a list of ideas. Shortly after I decided which album I wanted to review, my other friend Dom went through hell and high water (full of shit) to get it to me so that I didn’t have to purchase it with my currently empty checking account. Thanks guys.
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The Century of Self by …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
If you were to take all of the members of AYWKUBTTOD, or Trail of Dead as my lazy ass will refer to them as from now on, and put them in a room with no windows and no chairs and leave them in there for five days and four nights without food or water, they couldn’t come up with a more appropriate band name. The way I understand it is that they had some random weird name or whatever, and after they would play shows all of their fans would be so starved for the band’s sweet, sweet music that they would mercilessly slaughter everyone in between them and the next venue. Or something like that. Now, that story is ridiculous, but if you know Trail of Dead’s music at all, then you were just sitting in your chair nodding and thinking to yourself “Yeah, I can understand that”. What makes that story plausible is how good Trail of Dead really are. Typically they are considered an art rock band along the lines of the Arcade Fire, and I can understand that. However, that doesn’t quite convey what you’re getting in to when you pick up one of their albums, especially The Century of Self. While Century is still rooted in the artistic side of the rock genre, this album marks Trail of Dead’s first release under their own direction after their split from Interscope. What that gives us, the fans, is a record much truer to the sound that Trail of Dead is aiming for; they were able to stick to the art rock that established them, but at the same time delve deeper into straight up punk, progressive, and even folk territories. Let me put this out there: Trail of Dead are master songwriters. Songs vary in length from around two minutes to just over six minutes, so if you average the album you get around four minutes. Each of these songs is a world in and of it self. Here’s an example. What might be my favorite track on the album is track three, Isis Unveiled. The song starts out strong and fast with a lot of high energy and powerful guitar/drum combo, but then it slows down, the guitar diminishes and the drums and bass stand front and center beneath light, melodic vocals. This slower rhythm winds down and begins to fade out, but then the guitar kicks back in and you get hit in the face with a wall of sonic bricks for an epic reprise of the beginning riff for a finisher. And then there’s Bells of Creation, which could easily be a Rush song, but in a good way. It’s got that 80’s prog piano sound that Geddy Lee & Co had which catapulted them to fame. You know, before they lost their balls and got shitty. Ok, I know it’s hard to imagine Rush before they got shitty, but work with me here, try and pretend.
If you want a pretty good idea of what you’re going to hear when you listen to The Century of Self, think of Neon Bible if Domesitca-era Cursive had written it, so basically a little more hard-hitting. What I like about Century is that it plays with a lot of different emotions. Listening to it is almost a theatrical experience with each song being a different act. Well, maybe each song is a scene. A 13 act play is worse than high school theater. Honestly, if you’re having any doubts about your life, go see an amateur play because you will very quickly make up your mind about whether life is worth living or not. And though the Arcade Fire/Cursive hybrid is a fairly accurate description of what you’re getting with this album, it’s still not 100% perfect. There are still some folkier, almost Springsteen-esque moments on the album that aren’t captured in the metaphor. Ultimately, Trail of Dead’s latest release has a lot of complexities to it, so it’s not the best thing to throw on if you need to focus on something (like writing an album review) because the music is so engaging that unless you have uncontrollable ADHD or two heads you can’t listen and perform some other task that takes more concentration than shitting. So, as per tradition, I shall end with some sort of comparison. Umm, well, The Century of Self is like the perfect food, something that will satisfy your mood no matter what your taste buds are craving; like finally being able to eat grilled filet of flounder with some parsley and oregano with a light marinade in strawberry jelly and covered in chocolate chips without people looking at you like you’re some sort of freak. I just like to be creative, ok?
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That does it for March’s New Music Tuesday. I like how I make myself seem more important by capitalizing New Music Tuesday. Yeah. Well, to sum it up, The Century of Self is really great, but it can be a lot to handle because Trail of Dead draws on a lot of different influences, so I recommend it strongly to those with an open mind or fans of the art rock genre, or both. Join me next week when I expand on my theatrical nonsense! Until then, keep breathing.
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