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Album Review: ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Century Of Self

It's been a rough few years for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. Since the acclaimed Source Tags and Code, recipient of a perfect ten on Pitchfork, they have lost original bassist Neil Busch, suffered many more lineup changes and have left their label Interscope.On top of this both the excellent Worlds Apart and its hurried follow-up So Divided were not terribly well received critically, only deservedly so in the latter's case. The position many fans took was that the next album, their sixth, was to be the album that decided the rest of the band's future. If it was good they would continue to support them and if the downward trend continued, they would finally give up on them. 

This being the case Trail of Dead have essentially done the most frustrating thing possibly with The Century of Self by recording an album neither good enough to make a true return to form nor bad enough to accept their time has passed and thus be content to treasure their earlier, classic albums.
It starts well enough. 'Giants Causeway', a truncated version of 'The Betrayal of Roger Casement & the Irish Brigade' off their recent Festival Thyme EP builds up a great sense of anticipation before the band launch into 'Far Pavillions'. Trail of Dead have always known how to write a great opening track and this is no exception. Whilst not quite as album-defining as 'Mistakes and Regrets' or 'It Was There That I Saw You' the vocal interplay between twin frontmen Jason Reece and Conrad Keely, plus the characteristic instrumental break have you starting to believe that, yes, they've done it, they've made a great album again.
'Isis Unveiled' does much to strengthen this optimistic feeling. The lead guitar line is fairly atypical, and something one might almost expect to find on something by the latest Interpol-aping indie darlings. However, the construction of the track is classic Trail of Dead, with the epicness cut down by a stomp in the middle reminiscent of 'Will You Smile Again?' before the lead riff plugs back in for the thrilling conclusion.

It goes downhill from there, though. 'Halcyon Days' is the first weak track of the album; although it is roughly the same length as 'Isis Unveiled', six-and-a-half minutes, it feels much longer as it struggles to find a memorable hook.

As the rest of the album unfolds its flaws become more and more apparent. Listening to it brings back memories of listening to British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music?  In both cases the bands appeared to try and create a big, "epic" sound by turning everything up to maximum. The Century of Self is a similarly exhausting listen, as guitars, multi-part vocals, pianos, percussion and god-knows what else assault you throughout every track. As the album progresses each song, though individually very listenable, tends to get lost in the generic, over-produced noise. Trail of Dead's biggest strength used to be knowing when to let the melody take the forefront, and when to let rip with the noise. On The Century of Self they seem to have thrown melody and chaos in together, meaning the former is often subsumed into the latter, which is rendered less effective as a result.

Unsurprisingly, it's quite difficult to pick out highlights from the rest of the album. The other two Festival Thyme tracks, 'Bells of Creation' and 'Inland Sea', manage to sound epic, without appearing pompous, a balancing act heard best on Worlds Apart. Likewise the slower, more piano driven tracks 'Luna Park' and the two parts of 'Insatiable' stand out, although this might be due to the desperately needed change of pace and production as much as anything. But too many of the other tracks feel busy and unfocused and some potentially great ideas are sadly put to waste.

This isn't to say that The Century of Self is a bad album, per se, more that it's a disappointingly middling album, with fewer really great tracks than it deserves to have. It seems that Trail of Dead fans will have to wait until album number seven to see what the future of this once amazing band holds.

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