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Year in Rock 2012 Nominee: ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD
Catatonic
From: Lost Songs
Released: October 23

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead sometimes don't take it easy on their fans. Those of us who have stuck through them over the years have had to endure lots of ups and downs, and the music took a noted downturn in quality as the band grew more and more dissatisfied with their record label. Lost Songs marks the third album released on their own label, and it forgoes the tentative steps away from overblown prog-infused noise rock that marked The Century Of Self, and also puts the more explicitly melodic tendencies that actually somewhat worked to their advantage on Tao Of The Dead. Instead, Lost Songs brings the noise pillar to post, urgently and consistently. It's lazy to compare it to their now decade-old critically revered masterpiece Source Tags And Codes, and that's also unfair to Lost Songs. The album very well may be Trail Of Dead's first album in 10 years to absolutely thrill instead of merely exciting, but it's an album better not put side by side with a 21st century classic and instead put in the context of the four albums that came before; in this chronology, us fans can feel even better about Lost Songs, because it shows a band that hasn't come full circle but rather went through hell to find themselves again.

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