There's something especially upsetting about a band you've loved - and in many ways still do - turning out an absolute shocker. So it was that reviewing ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's new LP XI: Let It Bleed for Buzz proved to be a painful experience.
Conrad Keely and Jason Reece were punks with prog ambition from the very start, so a 21-track double album that ricochets wildly between a dizzying number of different styles is no real surprise. The problem, I'd suggest, is probably that it was conceived in lockdown, when (as Keely makes clear in the press release) there was nothing to do. Too much time and space can be a dangerous thing, especially in the hands of a pair whose quality control sensors are not always calibrated and who have no external record label pressure on them. There's a value in having some parameters, at least.
XI: Let It Bleed may be a far cry from that stupendous opening trio of records - the self-titled debut, Madonna and Source Tags & Codes - but that shouldn't necessarily be taken as evidence of a band who have been in terminal decline ever since. There have been several fine (if uneven) albums in the intervening period - 2011's Tao Of The Dead, for example, or 2020's X: The Godless Void And Other Stories - so, rather than writing them off, I'll cling to the hope that the next one will be much better.
No comments:
Post a Comment