...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead 


Expansive yet concise, X: The Godless Void and Other Stories leans in and reaches forth... From the synth-orchestral swell of curtain-raiser “Opening Crescendos” that recalls Hans Zimmer and Tangerine Dream to “All Who Wander”, a descending guitar-soaked high drama that simmers underlying despondence that crawls psychic. Next up, “Something Like This” offers nods to the ethereal songcraft that defined the sound of the legendary 4AD label, before everything kicks in at full pelt with “Into The Godless Void,” as noisy and thrilling an existential anthem as the band have ever put their name to.And this is just the first four songs – it’s hard to imagine this eclecticism is anything other than deliberate, but as founder, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Conrad Keely says of their music, “Songs have a life of its own. If you listen to them, they’ll tell you how they want to manifest.”
The band played their first show in 1995, the same year they released a live rendition of the darkly dissonant “Novena Without Faith” as a demo on a mixtape via Golden Hour, an underground cassette-only label. They swiftly became as well known for trashing their instruments as for the giddy thrill of their wide-eyed noise-rock, culminating in the majestic sprawl of their self-titled debut album two years later.
Absorbing the chaos and reckless abandon they made their way to make the Self Titled album (1997) and through the flame to form Madonna (1999) and Source Tags And Codes (2002), Worlds Apart (2005), So Divided (2007) Century of Self (2009) to 2011’s triumphant Tao Of The Dead and its jagged follow-up Lost Songs (2012). Working away finally on IX (2014)....Trail ....with all the years and days of being wild... they have kept up a rather nice work ethic.... Never giving in to whatever is en vogue at the moment ....

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