Blistering punk. Pile-driving thrash metal. Air-guitar-worthy arena rock. Dual-vocal post-hardcore. Epic prog. Hair whipping, faces contorting, sweat arcing through the stage lights ten feet off the ground. Trying to identify the sound of Austin's And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead is like looking for the proverbial needle after you and the haystack and your mom and your favorite cow, Bessy, have all been swallowed by the dragon.
One thing's clear: it's fucking intense.
Kansas City's Record Bar seemed like an odd choice for last night's lineup of Trail of Dead and the Secret Machines with locals the Dactyls. Buzzy bands have played there before (Phoenix, Dr. Dog, to name a couple), but I thought Trail of Dead had a following more appropriate for the Bottleneck -- bigger, younger. Though the place was packed, it wasn't too crowded to snake with relative ease from the bar to within a few bodies of the stage. The audience seemed mostly older, too, and tamer, i.e., people who had discovered the band's breakthrough album, Source Tags & Codes, when they were in their late 20s and not, say, 17. Maybe the 21+ policy kept the kids out. Or maybe I'm completely wrong about what age group I thought Trail of Dead appealed to.
These minor mysteries aside, Trail of Dead put on a brutal, merciless and heroically tight performance. If you like this band at all and didn't go a last night because it was a Monday, then you, sir, are a chump.
Led by the magnetic Conrad Keely (he of the mighty boy-whine) and powered by two drumsets (one of which was played by occasional co-lead singer Jason Reece) and a rack of nearly a dozen Gibson-type hollowbody electric guitars, this sextet plays with the cordial fury of a group that's paid its dues and is gonna keep paying, whether the MTV limelight returns or not. No sense of entitlement here. It may have been a Monday night at a small club in the midwest, but Trail of Dead brought it like it was their last show ever. They believed in what they were doing. They reveled in the sound and rush. And they gave the crowd better than anyone could've asked for. What beats that?
The only thing a bit non-punk about the presentation was the guitar tech/roadie swapping out guitars after nearly every song in the hourlong set for Keely and stoic lead guitarist Kevin Allen. Then again, I didn't hear a lot of plain-old major G, C or D chords. It's quite possible the group's songs require strange, devilish guitar tunings. In fact, I'm kind of surprised no one busted out a sitar and flying carpet.
Set wise, after an instrumental bravura, the Trail began with the opening progression from the new album, this year's Century of Self ("Giants Causeway," "Far Pavilion," "Isis Unveiled"), then quickly darted back to Source Tags and Codes for a few songs, over to Worlds Apart for the complex and stunningly gorgeous "Will You Smile Again for Me," and didn't return to the new album for the rest of the night. During the encore, an amp stack capsized, microphone stands toppled, and Reece swam into the crowd to sing, I think, "Caterwaul." With so much talent, drive and a rock-solid work ethic, this band will easily carry on 15 more years.
Openers the Secret Machines were fantastic, and I wouldn't have considered them meagre at all if not for the all-out Trojan War assault of Trail of Dead that followed. The trio, which got its start just north of TOD, in Dallas, before moving to New York, burst forth in '04 with the mighty Now Here is Nowhere, an album that reestablished the kick drum's role in rock and roll -- namely, to go whomp, whomp, whomp, whomp as loudly and heavily as possible. The group's sound is deeply rooted in the Texas '90s psych-rock scene; in fact, Phil Karnats of the late Tripping Daisy (kind of like a poor man's Flaming Lips), took over lead guitar for TSM in '07.
Last night, the group stuck to its more powerful, upbeat songs (as opposed to the boring, ethereal meanderings that have marred their two most recent records), bookending the set with the best tracks off Now Here: "Nowhere Again" and the epic lazer battle of "First Wave Intact." I could have left after this band's set, which had been preceded by a typically awesome and meaty bunch of tunes from Lawrence's Dactyls (a band you definitely should know), and left pretty satisfied.
But Trail of Dead ... my god.
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Secret Machines was not able to play a full set so it's easy to say that Trail Of Dead blew everyone away when in fact Secret Machines was by far the superior band. All though Trail Of Dead are one of the most versatile bands making music today.
On the other hand, The Dactyls were nearly horrific. It's as if they wanted to be a Dashboard Confessional version of 1983 Sonic Youth--- without the talent. And it seemed like the Dactyls learned how to play guitar over the weekend.
FYI: it was an 18 and up not 21+.
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