...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - So Divided

When ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead released its major label debut, Source Tags & Codes, the album was hailed as a masterpiece and named by many critics as the best album of the year. While the excellent reception must have been welcomed by the band, Trail of Dead realized it had a serious problem when its members re-entered the studio – how could it trump its own perfect album?

The result was the underwhelming Worlds Apart, which showed the band mellowing its sound, crafting fewer epic pieces and more radio-ready pop songs. The album was disappointing to the group's indie fans, and it failed to garner much mainstream attention. In fact, the commercial sales of Worlds Apart were so disappointing that the band was on the verge of breaking up.

Yet, as their violent namesake might suggest, Trail of Dead does not give up very easily. Earlier this year, they re-entered the studio and crafted their latest full-length offering, So Divided.

As Trail of Dead's history demonstrates, the group can't seem to decide if they want to pander to their indie-fan base or try and break into the radio mainstream. The aptly named So Divided suffers greatly from this schizophrenic attitude, yielding the band's most disjointed album yet.

Sometimes, Trail of Dead's conflicting desires work in its favor, yielding some accessible material that preserves the group's original sound. Take "Naked Sun," one of the album's highlights. Starting off with a driving drum line and nasty blues riff, the song slowly builds up into a fanfare with a full brass ensemble and string section. It takes six minutes to reach its excellent finale, and not a moment is wasted. "Life" is another excellent song, kicking off with a stuttering piano and a small orchestra in the background. Compared to Trail of Dead's old material, these songs are very catchy, and they are also interesting and non-traditional.


...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - "Naked Sun"
But alongside these gems, Trail of Dead presents us with a seemingly random cover of the Guided by Voices song "Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory," frenetic chamber punk ("Stand in Silence"), a Beach Boys tribute ("Eight Day Hell") and a pseudo-country piece ("Witch's Web"). Trail of Dead is obviously trying to escape from its own sound, and these failed attempts are awkward stumbling blocks in the context of the album.

Does this mean the era of Source Tags & Codes and all its complexities is over? Perhaps not. The closing seven minutes of So Divided recreate the sound that once made the band so epic – "Segue: In the Realms of the Unreal" and "Sunken Dreams" recall quite closely the raw energy and emotion that once earned Trail of Dead so much praise.

Indeed, the best songs on So Divided show that Trail of Dead is every bit as talented and energetic as it once was. True, the album is grossly unfocused, but epics like "Naked Sun," "Life" and "Sunken Dreams" justify the album's weaker moments almost all on their own.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/nov/30/trail-of-dead-strays-from-the-beaten-path-with-so-/

Bright Eyes - Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998–2005)

Who knew that Conor Oberst, frontman of the ever-changing Bright Eyes collective, was an amateur sound engineer? The title for his band's newest release, Noise Floor, is a reference to signal theory – a noise floor is the sum of all unwanted noises in an audio recording. This is rather appropriate for Bright Eyes' latest, which is not a traditional studio album but rather a collection of rare and out-of-print songs that never made it to an official LP.

In spite of its technical title, Noise Floor is anything but calculated and structured. It never succeeds in establishing a consistent sound. The tracks stutter along, making poor transitions with one another. There's neither a clear aesthetic nor chronological progression. Themes are not present in the record, lyrically or sonically. In fact, the only things tying Noise Floor together are Oberst's bleeding-heart lyrics and his quivering vocal stylings. Simply put, it feels sloppy.

But this is to be expected. Keep in mind that Noise Floor is not a traditional album. It is a set of sketches, rough songs that never made it to a studio album. They were not written at the same time, with any idea of unity in mind. Besides, even though they provide no sense of coherency when thrown together, the individual songs on Noise Floor are excellent.


Bright Eyes - "Trees Get Wheeled Away"; live (???)
For example, take "I Will Be Grateful for This Day." The song practically explodes in your stereo with a stuttering drum machine before leveling with a numbing synth line and Conor crying out, "Your heartbeat's what I tried to play/ with kick and snares so careless." The electric beat is nasty, and Oberst's straight-from-the-diary lyrics are as quotable as ever. "Blue Angels Air Show," another excellent track, evokes an electro-grunge sound as Oberst recounts the story of a summer crush he once had.

But those are the only two electronic pieces on a 16-song record. The opening track, "Mirrors and Fevers," is nothing more than crowd noise and a few a cappella vocals. "I've Been Eating (for You)" is one of Oberst's signature acoustic ballads, while "Drunk Kid Catholic" compares religion to alcoholism over a gentle piano line. Another excellent piece, "Happy Birthday to Me (Feb. 15)," embraces the orchestrated folk-pop sound that vaulted Bright Eyes to indie stardom on the album Lifted.

On "Motion Sickness," Oberst says "I want to get myself attached to something bolted down/ so these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing around." If Noise Floor is any indication, Oberst has not been bolted down just yet. His music remains ephemeral and mutable as ever, and this disc serves as an excellent reminder of that. The sheer variety can be either highly frustrating or highly interesting, depending on whom you ask.

If you are a Bright Eyes fan dying for more material, Noise Floor will not disappoint. Despite its eccentricity, it showcases all the things we love in Oberst's neurotic tunes – the LiveJournal lyrics, heartfelt acoustic guitar, the occasional drum machine and good solid songwriting. However, if you are looking for an introduction to Bright Eyes, it would probably be better to grab one of the band's more coherent LPs or wait for their upcoming studio album.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/nov/02/one-noisy-compilation/