...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Tao of the Dead

It's to their credit that, some seventeen years into their career, Trail of Dead still court the image of a relatively cutting-edge act. These days the production on their albums is half a world away from their earliest output, understandably so given the band's brush with mainstream success around the turn of the century.

That same bluster and love of the grandiose is still very much present, but the greater clarity afforded by their latter output albums has steadily eased them away from past overt Sonic Youth similarities. Tao of the Dead is a perfect example of this. The songs are as intermittently bellicose and jubilant as anything on 2002's Source Tags & Codes. Admittedly, the band might find that the lack of their early aural grittiness leaves a certain portion of their original fan-base a little cold but, for the more accepting of inevitable progression, this is a typically buoyant, explosive, rather excellent album. [Chris Cusack]