Does anyone here actually LIKE the new Trail of the Dead album?

the only thing that's cool about it is the sleeve art.

has anyone seen these guys live ? are they really so "incendiary" and "crazy" ? in pittsburgh they threw some water bottles around, and the schtick ended there.

They are a lot of fun live.

At any rate, regarding the new album: is it one that takes many listens to really appreciate? I thought it was annoyingly cliche when I heard it, which is why I didn't really give it much of a chance.

BUT! i really like the new trail of dead album. i really like the guitar playing and the drumming and the singing (but i suppose the lyrics are a bit suspect). the whole record has this kind of epic feel to it (sounds lame i know) and a lot of real power!

i think more people should like this record. no it's not "10.0" or "five stars" but it's pretty fucking good. i don't think there's been a lot of good punk/rock music released this year so this definitely stands out.

(NB Nate the focus group when it goes up will let you know that there are loads of closet Stripes lovahs! Hang on in there - you are not alone!)

Yeah -- 10.0 out of 10.0 . Jeezis.

That said, I dig Source Tags. Not a ton, but I'd give it an 8.0. It baffles me how anyone could call it "perfect." The sound and production are really solid, but the songwriting is weak. It's even weak compared with Madonna.

I love this album to death. So sue me. It seems to me like it's a very easy album to pick on. But unless you're diametrically opposed to anything with guitars in it (and there seems to be a few of you), you must surely see SOMETHING of merit in either "Baudelaire", "It Was There That I Saw You" or the title track.

I can't really put my finger on it - there's just something seemingly, well, CLASSIC about the album to me, and not just because it's a rock record or anything like that.

this album sucks bigtime, and it seems that it has already been forgotten despite the initial critical acclaim

Source Tags and Codes? I think it's still a winner. "Relative Ways" seems to come in for a bit of stick upthread but it's one of my faves and they still play it live. The spoken bit at the end of "Days of Being Wild" is pretty much as white-knuckle intense as anything off Madonna. And it's so well put together, with all the little interludes and lead-ins.

i haven't heard it, but i bet pitchfork regrets its rating.

i still like source tags and codes a lot.

i was into this album for a few weeks after reading the pitckfork review. it was actually one of the pitchfork reviewed albums that made me decide to give indie a chance.

all i really remember of it now is that there were liked 2, maybe 3, good songs toward the middle surrounded by a bunch of artsy filler. days of being wild was one of those stand-out songs for me. if the whole album had been full of that, i might still listen to it on occasion.

source tags and codes is good

century of self seems pretty good!

it *is* pretty good!

like i've said elsewhere, 'luna park' is possibly my song of 2009. i don't know how this has happened.

threadbump brought on by hearing 'intelligence' which is an awesome dance experiment they did on an ep

'worlds apart' is fucking ace btw, their best album. might even put it in my top 20 of the decade. well. hmm.

At some point, I wondered if Pitchfork had made a mistake in awarding this album a 10.0. But each time I go back to Source Tags & Codes, I hear the same things that drew me in the first time, and what became exponentially louder with each listen: this album takes everything one can learn from indie rock and applies it to such a broader spectrum, where it can reach rock fans of all ages and tastes, where it can open the door for teenagers who aren't ready for Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, and make the rest of us realize why we love this music to begin with. It's not a groundbreaking record. It's not even an original record. But you can draw a line to Violator, Siamese Dream, and Automatic for the People-- albums that indie snobs just could not understand in the early 1990s, but that spoke volumes to the rest of us, ready for something with more to offer than commercial pop. This is that kind of an album: tormented and juvenile, but god, what a fucking record. Trail of Dead are fooling no one: they came of age to these albums in the 1990s, and like the bands they grew up with, drew from the best of counterculture rock to create one of their own, for the kids. Their influences are not Berlin-era Bowie and New Order, not Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, not Woody Guthrie and The Flying Burrito Brothers: they're Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu and Jawbox. And when I listen to it, I feel as though I'm 15 years old discovering this world for the first time. --Ryan Schreiber

ha at first i was like "omg does ryan schreiber still talk about indie snobs in 2014" but that's actually from 2002

Yeah, I was looking through Pitchfork's best albums of 2002 list, and that blurb stood out as very much of its time.