…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead- IX

Experimental Alt- Rock

There are two sides to …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s IX; one is the overly regulated and uncomfortably forced introductory section, and the second is the theatrically scaled ambient rock of the album’s ending tracks. However, instead of irreversibly corrupting IX, this dynamic mediates the overflowing abstraction that the band has always seemed keen to drape across their work. In the case of IX, a parade of biblical references and pretentious metaphors gather in obvious abundance, and seem to carry the less than admirable intent of appearing sexy to tormented crowd of bong-hit philosophers. While this itself may not serve as particularly compelling criticism, it does highlight the largest issue with IX; the band plays with the mindfulness that they have something to prove.

The album does not lack confidence- there is more than enough of it. Even in the tracks that seem to stand as shameless filler (“The Ghost Within,” “Bus Lines”)-which drone on in the weird sort of way similar to songs picked by 2 AM radio DJs- there is an outstanding amount of confidence that is almost enough to fill in the inspirational gaps peppered throughout. However it is when the tracks delve into the deeper hitting melodic hooks of “Sound of The Silk” and “Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears” that this confidence- however smugly- pays off in spades. “Sound of The Silk “ particularly resonates with a jangly powerhouse of off-brand percussion and constant experimentation, a trait that the rest of the album consistently comes up short expressing.

For a band that started out in post-punk and somehow wandered into the feathery territory of art-rock, IX is a mediocre answer to a career’s worth of solid material. While not terrible, it is a far shot from all right, and an even farther shot from (some of) what they’ve put out in the past. Trail of Dead can do better, and they might be more successful if they stick to one genre in the future; right now this ‘genre intermixing’ seems like too great a burden for them to carry.