Review Summary: would you write again for me?
Whatever happened to ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead? It's a story so classic you could tell it 'round the campfire: critically acclaimed masterwork sets band up for life and then, almost immediately, for overwrought backlash no matter their next step; a trilogy of albums just as good as their consensus peak but overlooked and undervalued for any number of reasons; an underwhelming return after a half-decade gone that fed into the narrative that the creative fires of youth had long since flickered out. Admittedly, even I thought the limp
X: The Godless Void and Other Stories was the beginning of the end for them, a half-hearted hurrah before this band of mischievous cryptids called it quits once and for all.
But Trail of Dead have surprised me before, and they did so again. I've never quite been surprised by them to the tune of '22-song quadrophonic perfectly segued concept album', admittedly, and it was an even more pleasant surprise to find out that
XI: Bleed Here Now fucking rules. Forget the forgettable comeback joint: here we have an overtly ambitious, self-produced-in-a-barn true swing for that Magnum Opus fence. The only fair comparison point in Trail of Dead's discography is the multi-part conceptual heft of 2011's
Tao of the Dead, but even that album's punk-prog fusion looks borderline quaint next to the ground covered here. 70+ minutes of, just to start with, thrashing punk ("Kill Everyone"), Beatles-y pop ("Penny Candle"), a politically-inclined acoustic duet with Spoon's Britt Daniel ("Growing Divide"), fuzzy power-pop throwback ("Salt in Your Eyes"), and perhaps the apotheosis of that inimitable Trail of Dead spin on prog, an 11-minute battle soundtrack that plays like "Mountain Battle Song" on steroids ("Taken by the Hand"). The only thing
Bleed Here Now can't do, apparently, is give Jason Reece the mic, as his fantastic voice and fiercely emotional brand of power punk is relegated to a minute total. No doubt a bummer, but not a surprise, as everything from the album's conceptual sweep to the minutiae of its production scream Conrad Keely from start to finish.
Perhaps none of this would work without the oft-undiscussed but essential undercurrent of real human emotion that runs beneath Conrad's tales of gods and demons. He hasn't sounded this creatively fecund and emotionally honest hand-in-hand since, well, the glory days of yore. Gorgeous piano-led second half highlights "Water Tower" and "Contra Mundum" are some of his finest work, period; a reminder of the "Let it Dive" days when his vocal melodies rang out effortless over music that could be tense and textured in the same breath. So truly wild shit like "Golden Sail" abruptly kicking into a synthy krautrock jam, or the surreal bluesy grit Conrad tries on for size to narrate "Taken by the Hand", or the multiple movie-score string interludes are balanced out by these touchingly delicate moments, a dichotomy the band haven't successfully struck since
Lost Songs a decade ago.
What I mean to say is Trail of Dead sound rejuvenated, ridiculous and ready to rock. From the gloriously corny 80s riff that "No Confidence" rides to greatness to a recurring musical motif that ties all these disparate sounds and several interludes together, paid off perfectly in the moving closer "Calm as the Valley",
XI: Bleed Here Now is a complete piece of art. It's a swirling vortex that manages to pull together the political rage of
Lost Songs, sweeping orchestral soundscapes of
IX and the meandering labyrinthine excursions of
The Century of Self into one cohesive whole. Hell, there's an argument to be made that the album is too tidy, the edges too neatly sanded off from a band which began as three dudes all alternating screaming into a mic, bashing drums and wrecking every venue fortunate enough to host them. I don't mind it too much myself, although the truly cornball "Millennium Actress" could certainly give way to one classic Reece rager to truly balance out the album's excesses. But Trail of Dead have surprised me before, and they will do so again - plenty of time in the future for another album of bangers, but here and now,
Bleed Here Now is exactly what they needed to be.
