Source Tags & Codes [Extra tracks]

Pitchfork doesn’t dish out top marks anywhere near as frequently as so many of the UK’s monthlies do, especially not when it comes to new releases (though reissues get a smoother ride, typically). So this was reason enough to leave an opinion on a messageboard somewhere in the blogosphere. But Kanye’s A-star, smiley-faced, have-a-house-point report card wasn’t unprecedented. Rewind, again: 2002, and a raucous, violent, firmly underground (for all their efforts) rock outfit from Texas are the recipients of a 10/10 review on the same site. …Trail of Dead might not have been big, but they were loud, and with their third long-player they successfully showcased a developed compositional ability that outstripped not only their past efforts, but most rock albums released in the last decade.

After 1999’s Madonna, the group’s second LP, earned them a fairly small but fiercely loyal international following, …Trail of Dead – fronted primarily by the vocal powerhouses of Jason Reece and Conrad Keely (and backed by Neil Busch and Kevin Allen) – were snapped up by major label Interscope. Source Tags & Codes therefore had a bigger budget behind it than the band was previously accustomed to – and they made every dollar count, with not a second of space wasted. While volume was still front and centre, the group worked on a series of orchestral embellishments and horn sections to flesh their punk-energised arrangements into final wholes that swoop and soar, dazzling with accomplished polish yet – and this is very important – still rocking immeasurably hard.

Where to begin? With the beginning, actually – Invocation is the first sign that more is most certainly more on this set, a piano line weaving its way through a succession of seemingly-radio-sourced samples before the disc erupts, after a telegraphing bass drop, into It Was There That I Saw You. It’s an electrifying opening, two minutes which immediately impress. And it goes on, stunningly and assuredly – from Another Morning Stoner’s intoxicating grooves and super-tight snare beats; through Days of Being Wild, a song that demands to be played at a level that no stereo manufactured to date can manage, and the awesomely epic How Near How Far; to the cool relief of the title-track. If you picked up the UK special edition, Blood Rites brings the record to a close with a lung-busting finality.

A masterpiece of its time, Source Tags & Codes really does deserve to be held in as high regard as In Rainbows or Funeral, or any other critical triumph of recent history. Top marks, warranted. Fast forward a month or so and …Trail of Dead are back with album seven, Tao of the Dead. But it’s unlikely to resonate with its audience in the same way as this, a record that I, personally, could happily listen to ‘til the end of days without ever growing tired of.

--Mike Diver

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