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Apocalyptic
outsiders ...and You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead hail from Austin,
Texas, honky-tonk preserve and the Lone Star State's avant-Americana capital.
With its sophomore release, the band becomes the Southwest's latest outfit to
expand the definition of frontier town. "Madonna" is a sonic guitar epiphany, an emotional crisis and a conceptual gem. Guitars chime, squall, feed back and settle, only to explode again in tuneful cacophony. The rhythm section is so hyper-driven it throbs. And the band isn't afraid of larger ideas. Individual tracks on "Madonna" both stand by themselves and act as movements to the overall piece. This isn't Pink Floyd's "The Wall," but the CD does resuscitate the notion of an album as a collection of related songs and themes. Songs don't end as much resolve with electronic effects„sometimes dissonant, sometimes haunting, but always soundtrack cinematic, in a seamless transition to the next episode. The building barrage of personal loss and desolation on "Mistakes & Regrets" draws the listener into singer Jason Reece's distraught interior monologues. "Blight Takes All"'s chord shredding and electronic effects make the "what else can I do?" chorus a manic mantra for ultimate disillusionment. Orchestrated with violins, lonely piano samples and walls of distorted guitars, "Aged Dolls" is diffuse, anthemic and most probably about bleeding to death. "A Perfect Teenhood"'s thrash chorus "tommy gun/blood lust/a perfect teenhood/fuck you" is the most convincing explanation yet for Columbine. "Madonna" puts ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in line with other Southwestern rock mavericks like early-'60s psychedelic originator Roky Ericson and '80s punk performance nihilists the Butthole Surfers. If you can't catch the band live, they play till their instruments fall apart„"Madonna" is dark, essential and among the most extraordinary releases this year. | |
