... And You Will Poll Us By The Trail Of Dead - album poll

from revisiting over past few days, biggest takeaway for me is that although i had lost songs pegged as my favourite post-WA already, i think i actually forgot just how good it is. ST&C, WA and lost songs maybe a tier unto themselves for me. also, i think there is some rose tint looking back on the s/t. the half of it i remember is the good half, and half of it is p disposable. half of what, while i am on halves, is still amazing tho.

Worlds Apart deserves it imho. P4K maroons will probably give the 25th anniversary edition of it a 10 or something.

Voted ST&C in the end, but feel so divided. If anything this poll has reminded me to listen to these awesome guys more often.

Xp No prob Mark E, it's exactly how I feel right now!

Voted ST&C in the end, but feel so divided.

i see what you did there.

;)

Voted ST&C in the end, but feel so divided.

i see what you did there.

― mark e, Wednesday, October 26, 2016 4:49 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well those two albums are worlds apart

oof

yes.... IX worlds

^^ nailing ToD's brilliance.

Love Roberto's observation, feeling p much the same way. Those three form some sort of a trilogy in a very strange way.

Xp

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

what's the opposite of recency bias lol

as this thread was progressing i had a feeling we might be heading for a loopy result here but ended up being pretty sane. v glad that the love for WA isn't as marginal as i used to think. also v cool that there is an enclave of appreciation for this band here.

sure i have before but anyway, have to share my top TOD trivia, w/. added personal resonance - conrad was born in george eliot hospital in nuneaton.

There's four I could have voted for but went with Centuries in the end. STaC is their most *significant* release so it makes sense that it won I guess.

i didn't contribute to the discussion because i only really know their first 4 albums - loved madonna and ST&C, listened to the self-titled a bit back in the day, and fell off after Worlds Apart. i've given every album since then a chance, with at least one full listen, and...i just don't like where they've gone. i guess i just liked them the most when they were heavy and raw. now, even when they're heavy, it never feels raw. lame but true, i liked trail of dead when they sounded a bit dangerous, and they haven't in a long time imo. i recognize that's unfair and it's not a standard i really hold many other bands to, but there it is.

the one time i saw them was around the ST&C-era, and it was amazing. reece and keely seemed genuinely angry with each other, and every time they switched places as vocalists it felt like were trying to outperform the other. the set started off loud and chaotic and escalated from there. the drum set got demolished and reassembled and demolished again. conrad disappeared underneath the stage for a really long time and emerged with a damaged bass drum head, which he then threw out into the audience. i caught it like a bouquet and took it home with me like it was a collector's item.

LBI otm above about the rage of madonna. the lyrics were perfect for a teenager, and i used to play along to the song on the drums (at the time, a massive double bass set with EIGHT TOMS), waiting for the iconic drum fill which presages each chorus. i have wonderful memories of losing my mind to that song, sweating a bunch and kicking over my own floor tom in my parent's basement like a total weirdo, so i voted for madonna.

That nearly made me tear up Zach, bravo. (hope this is not your oppo dump tbh... Or maybe I do idk ;))

Despite not liking where they "went" (and I get you)' I hope the take away from this poll is they are a unique band in today's rock scene, treading down great and sometimes unforgiving paths, but treading all the same. It's about taking risks ultimately, when it's so much easier to not take them and just follow either the latest trend or succumb to continue to making music of their most loved record, ToD do neither: they are very much on their own path without knowing where it will take them. I admire that.

'Lost Songs' might get you some of that heavy and raw feeling back tbh.

Trying to think of an equivalent to TOD, maybe a British one...I suppose if we're talking a raw, arty rock group with post-rock tendencies, occasionally duff lyrics and a chameleon-like approach to album styles, then Six By Seven aren't a zillion miles away (plus, they started about the same time) But there's a real dearth of good arty rock at the moment. Will keep thinking on it.

TOD much much zanier/proggier than 6x7 ofc

their closest analogue is the smashing pumpkins - prog ambition making them outliers in an indie milieu, the pre-Raphaelite/renaissance aesthetic, conrad's vocals, the moments of self-sabotage

Oh, there's Mew, I guess, kinda

hmm thinking of british equiv of TOD unlikely to end well, prob something like muse

like, i am trying to think of a british band doing the kind of things they do and immediately rolling my eyes

a british band that does shit like borrowing king crimson's drummer to play cambodian percussion

I feel A Sunny Day in Glasgow could've been very much like ToD, but they took a different turn

Also, My Vitriol's first album comes close in terms of intensity. Songs not as good though.

ILikeTrains comes to mind, too, but too post-rock. This is hard LJ

Who would have guessed that this band would eventually morph into The Divine Comedy. (Exhibit A: Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears.) (N.B. I am cool with this.)

there can't be a British version of this band imo because ultimately as proggy as they got they are too much a product of American post hardcore, post Fugazi underground rock, I mean they were on Trance Syndicate

Karl otm they were such an amazing band around ST&C

KM otm because the first 3 albums were when they wanted to be Sonic Youth and Unwound, after that they wanted to be way more polished and suddenly seemed like they were drawing from entirely different influences.

I'm annoyed that Lost Songs isn't on (Canadian) Spotify, thus preventing me from making a proper best-of-TOD playlist

Unwound is so underrated

there is/was plenty of uk post hardcore, post fugazi underground rock too tho

oh man i played ST&C for the first time in forever yesterday. what timing

back around that era i tried to see them every chance i could. great band

never really associated the singers with the song before, but busch has some really great ones on there!

the one time i saw them was around the ST&C-era, and it was amazing...

really great post which captures the spirit of that era. their live shows were about complete and total annihilation of their equipment and bodies. one show i saw reece broke a rib when he fell onto the audience barrier and he finished the song without even missing a beat

I hope they play TO this year, I'd love to see them live finally

They're playing My War and Relayer in their respective entireties at a fest this summer, which kinda explains their whole thing.

ahahaha oh my god

:D

you know maybe this will be the thing that makes me finally listen to black flag

enjoy side two of my war lj

ha!

Hope it gets filmed, I'd like to see if they can pull off Relayer given that there's almost always been a tention between Conrad's prog ambitions and the fact that their musicianship tends to be little above the level of competent and functional (that's not a criticism, it works for them).

I SWEAR I KNOW NOT WHY
THESE EYES HAVE ALWAYS
LEFT ME DRY

according to a locked post on Conrad's Patreon, they started mixing #10 last week.

That is great news! Has his solo album been discussed anywhere on ILM? A doozy, with mostly 2 or 3 minute songs. Would swap the whole album for three or four well-worked out and longer ToD versions of those sketches.

I had no idea it even existed until....just this second.

This reinforces the weird ToD/GbV connection.

Ha, it does!

I had no idea it existed either until I stumbled upon a deluxe LP w/ 40 pages of drawings and lyrics in a Basque record store last month. Was very surprised to see it.

That's great news about a new album, I was wiondering when they'd come out with anything again. Conrad's solo album is maybe a bit MOR but very likeable I find.

'Hills of K-Town' is a great song

Source Tags was a huge album for teenage me, and I will occasionally revisit it when I'm feeling nostalgic. I kind of fell off with them after that, and never really kept up. Prompted by this thread I'm listening to Worlds Apart now, and...IDK. Can't really get into it at all. I'm pretty sure it's Keely's voice. It feels like not the right voice for what he's trying to do at all. Does it get better later in the discography?

yeah, i'm pretty much right there with you (down to having the same initials, i think?). i loved ST&C, and a show i saw around then still ranks as one of the best shows i ever saw. they were FERAL. madonna is quite good as well. i haven't been able to get into anything since.