Trail of Dead – early years …Are they Tao?


TOD performing “The Rest Will Follow” on the David Letterman Show.

SINGLE REVIEW: The Trail of Dead have jumped labels more than any band I’ve ever tracked with each release and quite consistently. Competing with the Poster Children and a few others with a decent stint on a major label ok maybe not as many as the pkids. Their upcoming release is going to be on their own label – Richter Scale Records. Never had the pleasure of meeting …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (at least not yet) and or since i knew about their sonic existence (thank you Benny of the Highway) they have been one of my favorite heavy and noisy bands of all time. Well at least since 2001.  Everything is really fuzzy before that. Conrad and the boys have persistently managed to bake in all the right elements of guitar swagger, big dumb drums and vocal angst. Giving you this huge soundscape of music. I can hear why Hemispheres was influence on this one with SIDE 1 and Side 2 of continuous music. I can’t wait for Tao of the Dead all to obvious album title. I’m still a devoted fan of their music> Their notereity will be there in a black flag kind of way with many a splinter and broken drum set in their path.  The pre-release of Summer of Dead souls track is exactly what you can expect. Check it out on Spin.com.  I encourage you to go to town if you dig these tracks and get the whole discography or at least parts of it. The new track is great. Feels right and the good payout is that they did not belabor the output. Less vanilla more rock. How’s that for a short review?

Sample some shit:
Gargoyle Waiting from S/T …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (1998) Trance Syndicate Records

Totally Natural from Madonna (1999) Merge Records. Totally out of character for the bands that were on merge at the time but damn wouldn’t it be funny if they returned like spoon did?

Another Morning Stoner from Source Codes & Tags (2002) Interscope. This is the record that put them on the map blah blah blah. Dude the cool kids picked them up.