All you can say is, “Hallelujah!” Just when you thought bands like this had ceased to exist, ..[a]And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead[/a]have come to save your life. Exciting, vibrant and intoxicating, ...Trail Of Dead hail from Austin, Texas, and like neighbours 16 Deluxe, their business is noise. Lots of it. They offer the kind of white-light feedback that can strip paint and cut metal.
Singer Jason Reece comes onstage like Stewart Lupton from Jonathan Fire Eater, but without the junkie chic. He dives about the stage, preaching the gospel according to the …Trail Of Dead. One after another, the songs sear a path directly into your skull: the tumultuous noise of ‘Clair De Lune’, the respite of ‘Flood Of Red’ and then the apocalyptic ‘Mistakes And Regrets’. The closest reference point is Sonic Youth, but they haven’t been this great since ‘Daydream Nation’.
Guitarist Conrad Keely steps up to the microphone for ‘Perfect Teenhood’. All windmill guitar moves, this is more punk rock than Blink 182 could ever dream to be, and it soon descends into chaos, with Reece trashing the drumkit before once again flying into the crowd and writhing on the floor. And that’s it. A stunned crowd stumble into the street, confused and disoriented. Any more, and it could have been fatal.