March 1, 2002

And You Will Know Us By The Tr : Source Tags And Codes

Not difficult third album. Very good indeed...

8 / 10 "When you have rhythm, you want to dance. When you have the blues, you
want to kill" - Conrad Keeley, Astoria, 2001

They might be unreliable witnesses and inveterate storytellers - there
can be few musicians unbothered enough by their "careers" to substitute
a proper website biography with an anthropological text on Mayan ritual
- but there's never been any doubt that ...And You Will Know Us By The
Trail Of Dead[/url] are a band to trust. Sure, they might be likely to hurl a
bass drum at your head during times of high tension - but at a cultural
moment when the very concept of an "underground" has somehow become
slightly embarrassing, Keeley, Neil Busch,
Jason Reece and Kevin Allen
sound as if they were born to a life of unfettered noise. "An
electric guitar hanging to my knees /got a couple of verses I can barely
breath" they sing on the almost-mellow 'Relative Ways', a love song
to rock'n'roll, and you can sense how much all this can - should - mean.

Certainly, they could have been forgiven for reining those destructive
urges and playing it safe with their third album: not only is it their
major label debut, it follows the thrilling success of The Strokes and
The White Stripes - neither of whom were a glint in the public eye when
the Trail Of Dead first crashed into view like Thurston Moore's own
winged monkeys. Accordingly, 'Source Tags And Codes' comes with an
albatross-like weight of expectation round its skinny neck - yet
happily, it's supported by a band who have grown to match it.

Admittedly, within the first three songs the band have already
quadrupled their tune-count - the helter-skelter urgency of 'It Was
There That I Saw You', the bloody riff-sacrifice of 'Another Morning
Stoner' and the diving board bounce of 'Baudelaire' all easily equalling
'Mistakes And Regrets' from 'Madonna' - yet this album hardly
represents the taming of their curious muse. On the ominous thud of
'Homage' or the drum-scuttle of 'How Near, How Far', their smash-and-
grab dynamic manages the neat trick of sounding simultaneously untutored
and highly focused, following new twisted threads out from the early-
90s underground labyrinth.

"Do you believe what I say?" screams Jason Reece repeatedly on 'Homage'
- and even knowing their ways, you can only say yes. With so much to
play for, so much Butch-And-Sundance, death-or-glory adrenalin, 'Source
Tags And Codes' leaves you feeling that the killing can wait for another
day. For now, we dance.

Victoria Segal