...And You Will Know Us by the Trail Of Dead
So Divided

And here they are again. The amplifier LEDs are on: but the anthropologists of noise return, disappointing all expectations.

Having reached their sixth work, Trail Of Dead are now a well-established reality of alternative-indie rock with experimental traits and epic tones: but after the half misstep of the previous "Worlds Apart" a more "focused" comeback was expected.

"So Divided" is instead a crazy experiment and only at times surprising: the flaw of magnitude. I'd be lying if I didn't say it's perhaps the least interesting and least successful album of their entire career. It's as if the band from Austin set out to develop music starting from the arrangement of "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles: wide suites, chipped pop-rock pieces, abundant choirs, percussion, and rattles, noises from the world that slip away and transform into long fanfares for strings and accordions, apocalyptic tides of sounds that move without resolution. On paper, all this would also be interesting if it weren't inevitable to notice the most shocking fact: that Trail Of Dead no longer sound like they used to. Throughout the album, there isn't a single feedback, not a larsen, a more pronounced dissonance, or a more pushed distortion: only melody, melodies indeed. Baroque orchestrations for pop... choruses.

The title track sounds like an unconvincing Oasis ballad (no, I'm not kidding) trying to make a big impression by launching into grand orchestra experiments. "Eight Day Hell" cites the Beatles (anything, mixed into a single two-minute potpourri) so brazenly that it imposes a skip in the CD player; "Naked Sun" sounds like one of those things from the latest Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, an old-school blues stomp but articulated and complex to the point of the unbelievable, complete with a Morricone-style coda and McCartney-like choruses in "Live or Let Die" style. "Witches Web" is downright embarrassing... if Elton John had written it today, it would be in the top ten all over the globe! Few things are salvaged, "Stand in Silence" is a gritty rock but again, it gets lost in a march worthy of the more sappy Blur (quote Tender), making half of the work pointless; "Wasted State of Mind" revives attention with an arrangement full of tribal sounds interlocked with a rain of piano and guitar notes, but it's not enough. Just when you've practically lost hope, that jewel "Sunken Dreams" arrives (last track, like a mockery: if they had opened the album with this piece and had limited themselves to following its mood, they would have churned out a masterpiece) where the guitars return rotating and sharp (electric, damn it!), a carpet of sounds reverberating to infinity, the Trail Of Dead of old times – it's fair to say – in an effective simplicity demonstration that turns into pure sound poetry.

New codes, in short, but not entirely clear and digestible. Where have the noise outbreaks gone? The indie-rock barrages so devastating and fast they'd make those old Sonic Youth guys blush? The immense sonic light bombs of "Source Tags & Codes" are a memory, and as already mentioned, even "Worlds Apart", while retaining some arrows in their quiver, had hinted at a frightening veer towards calmer and safer shores. "So Divided" on the other hand is simply absurdly redundant, I challenge you to follow it entirely with the same interest. The key to reading the album is certainly the search for the non-trivial solution, for the surprising conclusion. But there's no impatience, no curiosity raised in the listening; you already know that they will get stuck in a few seconds, a new passage, a new "ok fabulous" transition, then another change... a whirl of melodies all potentially brilliant but in the end not a single good hook.

Too many ideas and not enough substance. It will certainly be hard to replicate all the nuances and improbable transitions of "So Divided" in live performance (the guys have already accustomed us to wild and passionate shows), but it's also for this reason that Trail Of Dead remain unmissable.

*I deliberately close the "review" ten days ahead of the album's official release date. My heartfelt advice is: if you can, download the album before buying it blindly or pre-ordering it during the week. 20 euros these days is no small thing, even for the most hardcore fans like myself. Au revoir. AM