…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
XI: Bleed Here Now
DINE ALONE
The beginning of this eleventh full-length album by unpredictable Austin rock band …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead sounds like an ending. The first of 22 tracks—which ultimately clock in at an hour and 22 minutes—“Our Epic Attempts” is a grand, sweeping swell of orchestral sound that could have soundtracked a montage sequence from Lord of the Rings or some equivalent fantasy blockbuster. It’s beautiful and ambitious, but just as it draws you into its warm, widescreen folds, the band’s chief collaborators Jason Reece and Conrad Keely abruptly remind you, with the squalling, abrasive feedback, fuzzy guitars, crashing drums, and disembodied vocals of “Long Distance Hell,” that you’re actually listening to a rock band. The question as to what kind of rock band has always been particularly difficult to answer, however, and XI: Bleed Here Now provides little clarity.
“Field Song,” for instance, which immediately follows those two tracks, could almost be a Red Hot Chili Peppers song from a parallel universe. It’s in turn followed by “Penny Candle,” which possesses a bombastic chorus that’s stuck somewhere between Queen, Thin Lizzy, and 1970s-era David Bowie. The next track, “No Candle,” contains some pretty Zeppelin-esque riffs, although presumably there were no underage groupies in sight during the making of this record. Then there’s the 42-second “String Theme,” which brings this—briefly—back to a cinematic sound, before the noise-punk blast of “Kill Everyone” unleashes its melodic vitriol. That then gives way to the beautiful, mellow acoustic ruminations of “Growing Divide,” which also features Spoon’s Britt Daniel. That’s only eight songs—just over a third of those here—but many more than eight distinct feelings, times, and sounds conjured up.
To that extent, to describe each individual song kind of misses the point. It’s the cumulative effect of all of them together that makes this album what it is: an interdimensional fever dream that cuts through space and time (“Golden Sail”), deconstructs and reinvents the entire history of modern music (“Taken by the Hand”), hypnotizes itself with muted fury (“Protest Streets”), and even references the late, great Irish poet W.B. Yeats (“The Widening Gyre”—although it seems unlikely that Yeats would’ve understood or appreciated its trippy 85 seconds). Amanda Palmer also makes an appearance on the retro, faux-English folk of “Millennium Actress,” though little of her own music’s distinct aesthetic carries through.
It is, then, to say the least, a trip, but not one which—thankfully—comes any closer in helping define what or who Trail of Dead are. Their mystic mystery remains intact throughout. For obvious reasons, Bleed Here Now isn’t the band’s most cohesive effort, nor is it one of their most remarkable ones, but it’s nevertheless impossible to not be in awe of their ambition. By the time the album’s over—and it ends as it begins, with a cinematic composition titled “Calm as the Valley”—you’ll feel you’ve lived a thousand different lives over the course of a few hundred thousand years. The crazy thing is you’ll most likely want to do it all over again. Maybe not as soon as it’s finished, but one day, and for the rest of your multiple lives.
