And You WIll Know Us by the Trail of Dead: the next Strokes?

There are "And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead" and just like everyone sez, they have sonic youth tunings, mogwai dynamics, and are in great pain. They also have an excellent rhythm section.

yes, but not as long as The Rock'n'Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Co of Philadelphia 19141

Sorry, of course I made a spelling mistake in the bloody name. As recompense I will write ten times:

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

'Up up down down left right left right B A select start' is a longer and better name.

Well this is their third album, they've been around for about 5 years or so and they're pretty good. Guess that makes them not the new Strokes, huh? And they do have that whole Sonic Youth, great pain thing going on, but don't let that detract you.

Their songs will stop, and then start again.

which would make them the new Polvo?

Except nobody in the band is named Ash Bowie. And You etc. have been around for almost ten years now, which wouldn't so much make them the next Strokes as it would the next Stranglers, say.

i have realise that i would like a band that was a hybrid of polvo and the strokes. AYWKUBTTD are not that band.

I should not have mentioned the Strokes in the title. What I meant is are they just hyped by the usual suspects or do they make exceptional and/or revolutionary music? Maybe I should have written My Bloody Valentine instead of the Strokes in the title.

Best Case Scenario: perfecting math-rock five years after it mattered.

Who are AYWKUBTTD, Gareth? The correct abbreviation of "And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead" is AYWKUBTTOD. I guess I know their name now though I am not sure if it is "by the trail of dead". BTW ss this grammatically correct? Shouldn't it say "by the trail of the dead" as Sterling wrote before?

Are they still smashing their instruments to pieces at every performance? That's a tacky habit/gimmick. Can't say I'd ever want to see a band like them live; bands of their ilk are better when one can adjust the volume control at will. Also, one has to be weary when major label bands are going around acting all moody and angry. Hopefully, ...Trail of Dead has matured some since their 'Madonna' go- around.

I like seeing bands smash their gear. I saw a DJ smash a technics once. It was much more decadent and sickening than someone smashing a guitar for some reason.

Premeditated smashing sucks though, like college guitarists that buy a cheapo pawn shop guitar and switch over to it only on the last song with the express intent of smashing it.

We went and saw some glitch group at the ICA and they were pretending to smash their laptops - except actually they were smashing bits of already-smashed-up equipment next to their laptops and using the miracle of depth perception to make it look otherwise. Then one of them cut his thumb, ha ha rock and roll. They still got banned from performing again by the squares at the ICA though. Man.

I had a dream last night about an ILM festival and the guitars involved were huge, they had to be fitted together from special pieces. One guy smashed his and then got really upset and was going "What have I done? It used to play really good lines!" over and over again. It was quite moving and uncomfortable. I put it down to guilt over my turning my back on rock music.

best smashing I've seen has involved actual anger directed at the instrument. If it's been fucking up and seems beyond repair and is going out of its way to ruin the show, it seems fair enough to turn it into kindling.

ddd: you may want to check out my friend's comedy music solo project featuring the hit 'The Konami Code'. :>

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/242/sleeping_disorder.html

Yeah, everyone is looking out, being careful of the next Strokes or At The Drive In. It will be a shame if that tag sticks to them cause their previous albums are GRATE.
Their 1st major label album isnt drastically different then Madonna so Im still trying to understand where these wankers crying sellout popped up from, but then again we dont get no promotion landslides dumped on us in my little corner of the universe.

Trail of Dead won't be the next Strokes, cos their music isn't as immediate as the Strokes. While Strokes work equally on record, and live (probably), Trail of Dead can't be captured at their best on record, since there's so much more to the band than just the sound.

To use the old American Bandstand test for whether something will be a hit, does it have a good beat and can you dance to it?

The Strokes: yes.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Our Dead: no.

Matt LeMay has used the word absolute 5 times in his last two reviews. With reference to Clinic's album (7.2/10) he used the phrases "absolutely haunting" and "absolutely fantastic"; and in the And You Will Know Us review (10.0/10) he said: "absolutely astonishing," "absolutely indelible," & "absolutely classic." Is this just adjectival laziness or is LeMay a Platonist?

No one has commented on the trend of ORANGE front covers in 2002 - Chemical Brothers, Boards of Canada, Poison the Well and now Trail of Dead.

Orange: The Next Blue?

Still haven't seen the Trail of Dead cover, just heard it. But not 5 minutes ago I saw the Chem Bros for the first time in an ad flyer and nearly spained my neck in a double-take over its similarity to the BoC down to the yellow type in the upper right and the off-center hot spot. Holy hexagons!

Search: Bricks, "You Shouldn't Have Smashed Your Guitar."

Though, actually, the new Trail of Dead record is really pretty damn good.

does anyone really smash up good equipment? i mean, it sounds kind of expensive if AYWKUBTTOD smash their gear at every show. they most likely sound like shit.

I've never been too taken with this band. Their album covers remind me of computer games from 1992.

Thursday: the new Wednesday?

Seriously, ...Trail of Dead are fine, but it doesn't strike me that they're doing anything particularly new (least of all smashing up the stage at the end of the set. I'm not even going to needlessly list the thousands of bands that have co-opted that gimmick of the decades). I haven't heard their latest, major-label album, but the last one was alright -- if a bit short on actual tunes (which, as someone above rightly pointed out, negates their chance of ever being 'the next Strokes').

Another long band name: Alice Donut Liver Henry Moore

I like Mandee. And most anybody who knows computer game covers circa 1992.

Mitch, I got stuck in this one: PongSimple and bleeping fun.

And is it possible to use the word absolute when yer talking about the Strokes?

without implying something about vodka consumption? I'm trying to think of a phrase - maybe 'absolutely not poor' - but if you're conceiving of this whole music thing as a conversation rather than a conversion then there isn't much room for LeMay's claims. Maybe he should be fired?

How curious that Pitchfork gives one of its precious and much sought- after 10.0 marks to an indie rock record. The one track I heard sounded like a Sonic Youth tribute band - it was OK but also somehow unbearable. I think that was from their last record though.

Personally, I like them much, much more than the Strokes, the White Stripes and their ilk. I did a thread about this a while back but I don't really feel like hunting it down.

But the new album is ace, especially "Baudelaire", "Heart in the Hand of the Matter" and "Days of Being Wild". By the year's end this album will be legendary.

Thanks Simon, I found your old thread on ...Trail of Dead. I have only heard the track from the older album "Madonna" which is on epitonic. Sounded all right but not really innovative. Quite solid noisy indie rawk I'd say. But can the new record really live up to the hype? I am suspicious to say the least. I am just listening to American Analog Set who are also from Austin. They did not get a lot of hype if I remember well. But their latest record is absolutely phantastic and enters my top ten of 2001 belatedly.

does anyone really smash up good equipment?

Paging Mr. Reznor...

Tom: Your last comment was tongue-in-cheek, right? I mean, couldn't an indie kid say "oh look, Freaky Trigger is talking up some pop record agin." (I know ILM's done this discussion already and I seem to recall some "to each 'zine it's own" outcome, hence why I'm a bit perplexed.)

You know, if ...Trail of Dead actually sounded like Sonic Youth, I'd probably like Sonic Youth a lot more.

I prefer At The Drive-In, I'm not sure if the comparisons fair. ATDI perfected a breed of rock which infused math rock with a jolt of hip- swinging sexiness, (kinda like the Oxes but a bit more polished/clinical). The Trail of Dead come across as a drowning kid thrashing in a swimming pool, making lots of useless, dirty noise etc. ATDI also perfected the knack of reverse parking 40 syllable sentences into a 3 syllable space. They learnt a lot from touring with Fugazi (dynamics, pitching, stricture, structure etc). So of all the modern rock heroes (ATDI, Trail of Dead, Hives, Strokes, BMRC - in descending order) the Drive-In rock the hardest and bestest for me. But you didn't want to know that did you, you wanted some info on the Dead, oh well, ho-hum.

For some reason, I've always had a feeling that Tom enjoyed ATDI more than he let on.

Yeah it was tongue-in-cheek but it's the solemnity of the 10.0 mark that irritates a bit. It's the perils of a marking system - the idea in this case that the top mark represents "Essential listening" not what it actually means i.e. "The best indie rock album since the last 10.0".

I don't like ATDI one bit. But I heard "Relative Ways" just now and the Trail of Dead have obviously moved their sound on a lot. They have a fuller, more commercial, more tuneful rock thing going on which for some reason feels a bit Anglophile to me - you could imagine this being a late 80s Creation band, maybe?

I'd give the song a 6.9 by the way!!

I don't get the Sonic Youth comparisons. They remind me of Jane's Addiction meets arena rock. Not that Jane's didn't play a few arenas here and there. You know what I mean.

I'd give the song about 5.6 or so.

Actually, this would be a good record to sleep to in the afternoon, somehow.

maybe a 6.something, but only because i feel like listening to something loud right now.

it was OK but also somehow unbearable

Tom, that's great. I find them tedious and yawnworthy, not least because of their damn name - tongue-in-cheek 'ironic' embrace of the POWER OF ROCK, man, except they really do believe the myth and believe they can slay. Their new album cover is a COMPLETE load of shit, and it makes me never ever want to buy the record, much less even lay eyes on it again. (Let's see, can I get through this post without mentioning the music?) I saw their newest video on MTV the other night, and I couldn't believe how personality-less it was, in the worst "angular indie rock with a little post-hardcore thing goin' on" sort of way. The Strokes are so much better than these TOD it makes me weep. I don't know why, exactly, but I thought of Jawbox when I heard that song, except Jawbox were really good at creating tension - the scratchy, intertwining guitars and rubbery bass - whereas the TOD song I heard just kind of floundered. And the singer's voice is so flat and expressionless.

Jesus Christ, I just read Matt "Absolutely" LeMay's interview with them on Pitchfork... It reads like a fucking handbook on how to get on ILM's bad side! Complete with "real people playin' real instruments and sweatin'" comments, "We're trying to make an album, not just a bunch of songs - you know, Pink Floyd, 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'Pet Sounds'...", and, unfuckingbelievably, a big-up to "Destiny's Child ("Now they suck, though" - of course), Timbaland, TLC..." near the end - wow, is this 1999!? Egad.

Dude. You need to be converted by the power of Rock-And-Roll. I mean, they've got a song called "Baudelaire." What more do you need?

A reason to listen to them further. Alas, this has not been forthcoming on the basis of their recorded work so far.

I'm thoroughly offended by the "next Strokes" remark. Trail of Dead is one of thousands of cheesy death metal acts whose music is 100% unmemorable. Even if you were referring to the hype... I bury myself in all the big music magazines, scower the net every night, and talk to a broad variety of music fans. I've only heard of those goons a handful of times! There's no hype there.

Now, the Strokes... The Strokes are the greatest rock and roll band of all time. Julian Casablancas consistantly (and effortlessly) churns out beautiful melodies and perfect lyrics. The band is exactly as tight as the best rock act in the universe should be, and their songs/music/sound has a distinct energy that IS picked up on record because it ACTUALLY EXISTS! The Strokes buzz was perfectly justified, whereas the one or two losers-searching-for-the-next-big-thing who may have mentioned Trail of Dead in passing had no foundation.

...Trail of Dead, the next Strokes? GTH, Idiot!