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

Worlds Apart. I never understood the love for ST&C - too muddy and bland. Big sound without great songs. Worlds Apart is so ambitious and unique and assured- the incredibly harsh criticism and dismissal by the prog-phobic press left them without a leg to stand on: not big enough for the mainstream and abandoned by the indie world. I love So Divided too, never understood why that was hated. Great riffs and successful experiments like "Wasted State of Mind." The songwriting got better too - the title track is really moving to me, a simple sort of classic rock song with a mature view. I lost interest after that record. I still think it's a crime what the press did to them- build them up and then burn them at the stake. They've been relegated back to playing small clubs and pubs now for years, they should be playing bigger places.

I only ever had Madonna. I enjoyed it a lot but never felt like checking anything else out for some reason. A mistake?

Also I remember an interviewer asking the singer what he had in his pockets once and he had a sheet of acid and a zipdisk

xxp I think they still do pretty well in continental Europe, esp. Germany. Many countries don't forget/dismiss bands to the extent that we do in the UK/US.

Couple of others I could go for but it's probably going to be Century of the Self for me. So many good songs.

The zipdisk is the proggiest of all discs. Bloated but it does the job really well :) xp

The press always slagged Conrad's voice but I love it. I guess the best litmus test for this band is the "HEY FUCK YOU, MAAAAAN!" at the beginning of "Worlds Apart."

Not much humour in their catalogue iirc but that is a lol for sure.

Had to vote Tao, amazing album

feels a bit wrong that we did this before they got to their tenth album, hope that's some kind of three-hour monstrosity

also no one ever reps for it but I REALLY like the debut, "Novena Without Faith" is beautiful

going for the debut as i feel it won't get the love it deserves.

Finally heard this band recently after avoiding them because I had a wrong impression of what they sounded like because of the name. Hate it when that happens.

these guys are my favorite rock band of all time, every album owns

Wondering if the Tao of the Dead cover belongs on a certain image thread.

I loved this band up to Source Codes but was a bit disappointed by Worlds Apart and got off the bus after that - I've caught up all the later albums since then but none of them really grabbed me as a whole (although there were definitely great songs here and there). I probably need to revisit the last four.

i actually legit can't decide between century of self and tao of the dead; they sound so reinvigorated on century, and the songs are really strong and feel like hybrids of worlds apart and madonna, aggressive, digressive, and pretty. tao conversely feels like the record they'd always wanted to make

also i just learned there's a tao of the dead part 3!

double guitars, y'know??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v09TM7Z25qg

Some days I think Giants Causeway/Far Pavillions is the best way to open an album ever.

Going to listen to all albums after ST&C tonight while writing an essay, that should be fun. Worlds apart, really loved that one, but after that I probably didnt invest enough time and energy in their albums.

i love ix too but i feel like it doesn't really start until "lie without a liar"

PSHAW jaded apostles and million random digits are both great

they're good but idk the momentum feels kinda off before "lie"

Listening to Lost Songs myself and it's very enjoyable and BIG sounding, but I think their compositions were much more inventive on ST&C. Watched an old Conan performance of Relative Ways and while that song seems simple and BIG as well it's also intricate and in control.

Jaded Apostles is a weirdly slow track for second on an album, but at least it's a good song

Ha, just got to Pinhole Cameras and that guitar part that opens it is clearly recycled from Relative Ways

I mean thats where my head went, at least

The whole ST&C thing feels like 'is the dress gold and white or black and blue?' (it's gold and white), i just don't hear the 'inventive compositions' or interesting lyrics. Worlds Apart is so much more idiosyncratic and powerful. I don't dislike ST&C though, "Baudelaire" rules.

Yeah your post upthread is like the exact opposite of mine. I found that very interesting! It's cool to see that if they lost one set of fans another set was enjoying them more than ever.

This thread has fucked up my priorities, 70s soul funk album poll going down and all I'm listening to is trail of dead.

omg <3 bus lines

Century Of Self is good but it'd be better imo (and a candidate for #1) if it didn't have Isis Unveiled OR Halcyon Days on it. (LJ, hating on the longest songs??) But seriously - after the jet-fuelled opening duo, to skip the Will You Smile Again retreads and head straight for Bells Of Fucking Creation - and then the rest? I just find the long songs unwieldy on this one.

ST&C is probably everyone's favourite because of the bassline on It Was There That I Saw You. Maybe all the basslines. They lost an awesome bassist, but I think they probably grew as songwriters.

I also listened to Tao Of The Dead and it didn't quite grab me as I'd hoped, except for Summer Of All Dead Souls and maybe the one after it. But it wasn't exactly dull either so I'll have to give it more listens

i can't even hear the bass on ST&C!

but man. "Baudelaire" just BANGS. such a killer fucking song

the bass on 'IWTTISY' is maybe the single greatest thing this band has ever done

I've read the P4K reviews of all their albums today. ST&C got a 10 rating, which seems about right. I can't find a single flaw in that album. They've been kind on the band after they tanked it with Worlds Apart, rightfully so as they managed to fight their way back again (even though I still love Worlds Apart in all its glorious bombast). The last two albums I feel I've neglected, so will put those on again tonight.

I honestly do not why I created this poll when I did, it just felt like a right time to revisit this band. And it has been.

the bass on 'IWTTISY' is maybe the single greatest thing this band has ever done

― imago, Thursday, 20 October 2016 17:59 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on further consideration, the answer to this is the bridge of 'bells of creation', which might be in the top ten rock bridges ever

i think the song "So Divided" might be my favorite thing they've ever done

it's really great yeah

I've listened to ALL THEIR ALBUMS now and worked out my TOD CD-80! It features tracks from all but one of their albums:

1) Open Doors
2) Novena Without Faith
3) It Was There That I Saw You
4) Will You Smile Again
5) Summer Of All Dead Souls
6) Wasted State Of Mind
7) The Ghost Within
8) Flower Card Games
9) Bells Of Creation
10) Heart In The Hand Of The Matter
11) So Divided
12) Luna Park
13) Lost In The Grand Scheme
14) Caterwaul
15) Intelligence

Brad and flappy will be pleased to note their own favourites in here, because they really are great songs. Nothing from Madonna though! I didn't really get on with it. Maybe if Aged Dolls had had that outro removed I might have included it, but the songwriting didn't really hit me. I think they got much better after that. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with this playlist. If only it could be made to segue properly - most of the tracks end mid-segue into something completely different

Great list LJ. Mistakes & Regrets a serious Madonna-ommission imho, but I can see it wouldn't fit in the run you put together.

that's a pretty solid effort imago! They are not an easy band to anthologize in this way, especially since they are deceptively diverse sonically.

You ought to check out Elena's Tomb. Shouldn't be ignored if we're starting to talk about songs.

did you read my playlist lol

Heh, overlooked

Have put together a (chronological) CD-80 of my own, heavier on the first few records and only two tracks in common with Imago's but I do plan on giving all his picks a second chance:

1. Fake Fake Eyes
2. Prince With a Thousand Enemies
3. Mistakes and Regrets
4. Claire de Lune
5. Sigh Your Children
6. How Near, How Far
7. Heart in the Hand of the Matter
8. Relative Ways
9. Crowning of a Heart
10. A Classic Art Showcase
11. The Rest Will Follow
12. Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
13. So Divided
14. Isis Unveiled
15. Fall of the Empire
16. The Doomsday Book

haven't really thought about what my favourite trail of dead song is but my instinct would be to say another morning stoner, and i am perplexed and dismayed at its omission from these cd80s.

Gavin's taste is much more in line with mine it seems. For instance, speaking of Elena's Tomb, I do not like the last two tracks and for awhile Crowning of a Heart was my favorite song by them.

this has been one of my favorite youtube videos for years. Trail of Dead in 2003, they start going into Richter Scale Madness but the stagehand is desperately trying to signal that their set time is up. they keep playing out of spite and the dude starts getting really heated and they start fucking with him hard. then they trash the stage lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shYl9-zDb64

idk if this fits on one cd but my essential tod would be something like:

let it dive
wasted state of mind
how near how far
all saints day
awestruck
ebb away
bells of creation
the dragonfly queen/how to avoid huge ships
baudelaire
pictures of an only child
fields of coal
relative ways
weight of the sun
a classic arts showcase
the wasteland

Hahahaha. That is amazing. Seriously what is the dude's problem? Xp

only saw em once in 2011 to a mostly empty club, they rocked, I say go for it because you'll probably regret not going whenever they call it a day

back then it was like half new album, half old favorites, of course they closed with Richter Scale Madness... I remember Surfer Blood opened for them, and I guess most of the crowd came for them because by the time Trail of Dead came on there were maybe 40 people left. Didn't deter them at all, didn't even look pissed or disappointed, just happy to rock for whoever was left.

sold. I've wanted to catch them live since catching that "Mistakes and Regrets" performance on that show Matt Pinfield hosted (lol)

they were great on the source tags tenth anniversary tour which uh i guess we're creeping closer to the 20th

yeah this year marks the 20th of Madonna

incidentally I relistened to the s/t today and while it's badly in need of a remaster, it's still great. "Novena Without Faith" is so beautiful

Hate to say it, but they were absolutely dreadful when I saw them a month ago. I don't go to concerts a lot anymore, but I really wanted to see these guys. But It. Was. Bad. A huge disappointment. It was billed as a ToD plays Madonna/ST&C concert. They did play Madonna from start to finish, but bailed after three or four ST&C songs. Not that it mattered: they were horrible. They pulled up a wall of sound that obliterated all melody, everything that makes their songs such great songs. I know Madonna by heart so I know which song follows which song, but you couldn't make out the songs they were playing at times. Too much feedback, too much noise, a great injustice to what makes them so great.

oh no :/ hopefully they've got that sorted by May

Hope so too. You can always go and buy a nice hand-drawn Keely drawing at the merch stand, that's something.

A buddy of mine saw them a few weeks ago in Vera, Groningen and according to him they were great. Loud, but great.

That was the same show I was at :) It was loud, and terrible. The loudness obliterated what I find ToD's strength, which is melody. They did not find that balance, at all. There's no need for them to be this loud. It felt like they tried to obscure bad vocals/bad play by just blasting their songs out there. Plus: bailing three songs into ST&C - my fave ToD album - was nagl, to say the least.

Idk, ymmv, but I was bitterly disappointed by one of the bands I admire most.

They played well in TO last night - their drummer in particular is great - but the mixing and tone was absurd. Specifically, their lead guitarist was so amped up (both in terms of amplitude and maxing out distortion) that it drowned out everything but those drums! Conrad was literally inaudible. Completely baffling choices. The set was Madonna plus a couple Source Tags tunes, though it took me a full 45-60 seconds each to figure out what those were due to the sound.

This was nice to see, incl some great trivia I hadn't previously heard.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/and-you-will-know-us-by-the-trail-of-madonna/

never got why people think that's the classic, including the band itself seemingly, they got much better later on

go back and correct your atrocity of a worlds apart review cowards

I think the review is correct to say it's not seen as *the* classic (see poll results!) but was important nevertheless, and was a big part of that loose scene of "aggro" indie acts mentioned

lol at "Totally Natural" being inspired by Dogstar, who even Keanu recently admitted sucked

i guess in context it was important

that completely contrived Farmclub performance that's mentioned is absolutely what got them on my radar in the first place. I wasn't aware Iovine had taken such a personal interest in them, though

The pitchfork sunday reviews lead with this quote:

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible.

I guess that means they had deleted the original review from their archive?
https://web.archive.org/web/20060508094809/http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/and-you-will-know-us-by-the-trail-of-dead/madonna.shtml

(it's not nearly as embarrassing as some of Ryan Schreiber's reviews, and the number rating they gave it back then is just about the same)

That’s really funny. I was wondering why they wouldn’t have reviewed it the first time around. That original review is godawful, of course.

https://youtu.be/bbXNaERHIfA

new one X: The Godless Void and Other Stories (lol) out in January. single's good, Keely is....sort of really singing on it?!

Singing's not too bad! Not blown away by the song, but I'm not left hopeless, which is something

this sounds pretty good! the instrumental bridge is where it's at

Aaaww, I love this! The singing is so nice, though I think I prefer when the guitar is a bit lower in the mix and all murky. Hope there's something as good as A Million Random Digits on the new one.

A lovely little 90s alt-rock song! Nice of Conrad to show us a bit of his life in Cambodia while he's about it

But yeah, hoping for something more dynamic next. XI was a really strong album imo

Sounds great

new one is moody AOR comfort food and I mean this as a compliment. the vocals are, as aforementioned, mysteriously improved.