This record will have rough and solid sex with your ears. After listening to it you will be sweaty, tired and completely satisfied. Cheaper than a hooker and disease-free too! This record will make you happier than a junky on inhalents.
No strong feelings either way on this baby. It's got it's good points but it's got it's bad ones too. In the end it just all kind of levels out. Mediocrity is the key word here.
Bad record. Don't you ever fucking do that again! Now I want an apology.
Destined to leave you feeling like you were aurally raped. Your ears have been sullied and violated by the most disgusting of musical perverts. You may even need an abortion after hearing this.



 

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
The Secret of Elena’s Tomb
Interscope

First off, the new Trail of Dead EP is nothing special. It’ll always be hard for them to measure up to their previous work, especially their last album, which was one of my favorites from last year. Unlike some of their other records, the mixing here is up to par. I remember listening to Source Tags & Codes and wondering if they let a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation set the levels in the studio.

The first three songs sound like b-sides from Source Tags as they may very well be. The best of these three is definitely the opener, “Mach Schau”. It begins with the trademark Trail of Dead build-up intro and proceeds to rock you in a very familiar fashion for the rest of the three minutes and 48 seconds. The second and third tracks, while they are the Trail of Dead, just aren’t that good. They sound exactly how I described them earlier; b-sides.

The next two songs are pretty different from most Trail of Dead songs and show two different paths that the band may take. “Counting Off the Days” starts as a bare-bones acoustic song and ends with very lush instrumentation from a bagpipe. The song has a very mellow feel, especially compared to their other material. The last song, “Intelligence”, with it’s programming, samples and drum machine, could easily be a Nine Inch Nails song. And at times the singer even sounds like Trent Reznor. Very cool indeed. But now I’m worried about those sub-humans who consider themselves “Industrial-Metal” fans sporting Trail of Dead shirts.

In addition to the five songs, they’ve also included 3 videos ("Relative Ways", "Another Morning Stoner", and a live performance of "All St. Day") and a sketch gallery on the cd-rom portion.

If you’re a hardcore fan of these guys then you already have this. But if not, just wait for the next full-length.
-Austin
10/17/03
 

 
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
Source Tags & Codes
Interscope


This is probably the best thing Interscope has put out in a long, long time. This album is filled to the brim with caustic, aggressive and powerful rock music. Trail Of Dead offer up a beautiful sonic assault, it actually hurts me sometimes to listen to this album. It's one of the few non-metal bands that I can call 'brutal.' Throw Sonic Youth and the Stooges in a blender and you'll have a small hint at this album's sound. The between-track segues are great; short ambient pieces filled with echoing notes, voices, accordions, etc. I heard the band recorded a full album's worth of ambient material just to make these transitional segues. The album starts with It Was There That I Saw You, which begins with a clean guitar line before unexpectedly exploding into a dense wall of angry sound. It's nearly enough to knock the listener to the ground. The rest of the album follows suit, not letting up for a second. How Near, How Far is probably my favorite track on the album, a triple snare hit riding above the thick guitars. It's as angry and catchy as anything off a Nirvana album. Believe the hype, this record is good.
-exadore
4/13/02