Live Review: ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

Conrad Keely jokes that the Corner Hotel crowd are guinea pigs for ...And Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's first live performance of Source Tags & Codes in its entirety. For an album that received a 10/10 rating from Pitchfork upon release in 2002, it is surprising that the results are not altogether pleasing.

...Trail Of Dead start well enough, as Invocation is given a pass and the crowd is gleefully thrown head first into an up-paced It Was There That I Saw You. Another Morning Stoner is similarly fast and punky, but it's also sloppy in delivery as the guitars our drowned out by a bass and kick drum heavy mix that becomes intolerable throughout the first set. However, in this environment, the punkier songs off Source Tags & Codes thrive such as Homage and Days Of Being Wild, while Monsoon is purely bad arse. Unfortunately, the delicate beauty of How Near, How Far and Relative Ways is sadly lost in a mess of noise and vocal cobwebs. The title track finishes the first set on a bright note before Keely jokes that a “mandatory five-minute break is imposed by Australian law” between sets, which ...Trail Of Dead co-founder Jason Reece says will be used primarily for tequila shots.

The band return ten minutes later with a hat-trick of blistering punk numbers off their new album, Lost Songs; which could easily be confused with earlier material in terms of pace and ferocity. A Perfect Teenhood (off their 1999 album Madonna) features, but it is Will You Smile Again? that is undoubtedly the highlight of the entire performance, with …Trail Of Dead absolutely careering through the song with spine-tingling intensity.

It is a shame that Caterwaul is the only other song to feature from their brilliant album Worlds Apart, the 2005 follow-up to Source Tags & Codes. …Trail Of Dead do not lack desire or effort throughout the second half of the set, with Reece immersing himself in the crowd regularly and to great effect when not performing drumming duties, especially during Caterwaul. However, a combination of the mess of sound and the selection of similarly head-banging material renders the performance a little indifferent from a purely musical perspective.

…Trail Of Dead close frenetically with Totally Natural before an elongated breakdown concludes in bizarre style with Keely trashing the drums with his guitar amp before, without any warning, blindly throwing his guitar hard and flat into the crowd and immediately exiting the stage, leaving some poor guy bleeding from the head.