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

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.

Almost every album after WA is superior. I'd skip straight to Tao of the Dead and see if that strikes your fancy at all.

Thanks to Simon for the good advice. Tao is leagues better. Now I'm listening to IX which is really surprisingly quite good. Also, this band is ideal for blocking out office noise.

IX is like my second favourite of their albums tbh

Lost Songs is also great and I'm annoyed it's not on Spotify

On tour again. Anyone seen them recently? Worth dropping 20 bones on?

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.