And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Tao of the Dead

Oh man, I used to bum these guys so hard around the turn of the century. Quite how they went from being one of the most thrillingly vital live bands around (also knocking out a couple of belting albums along the way) to plodding out plonkerful MOR bombasto-prog in the space of a couple of years I'll never know, but I'll always have a soft spot for them for the ace times I had at their shows and everything. This new one comes with preposterously elaborate artwork (with the inner comic bound in a hardback book for the limited CD version) that quite reminds me of an even more ridiculous version of Mansun's Six and, weirdly enough, they kinda sound like Mansun from time to time now.. Much of the first single 'Summer of Dead Souls' could easily be the Chester types covering 'The Rest Will Follow', a brighter moment from the initial 'things are going a bit wrong here' record, Worlds Apart. Most of the post-hardcore 'n' Sonic Youth elements have totally gone now, along with the 'drum rolls every five seconds' thing, replaced by a more straightforward (and dull) '90s indie rock' take on overblown proginess.. Just to give you more of an idea: there aren't any track numbers - just letters which designate the 'parts' of the 'suites'. So yeah.