And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
The Secret Of Elena's Tomb EP
(Interscope)
Last years Source Tags And Codes blew the pants off just about everyone. After worries that signing to a major label might taint their sound, the group proved just about everyone wrong by releasing what was easily the best pure rock album of the year. Not content to rest for too long (and to keep them on the minds of people), the group is back with a quick blast EP, and it's almost as solid as their last full-length, even as it makes a couple slight departures from their sound.
At 5 tracks and just under 20 minutes, it's a nice dose of music from the group, and they get rocking straight-away with "Mach Schau." The track opens with some slightly lulling guitars and drums, but it's obvious that they're going to take off at some moment and eventually do, pounding into a track that feels like a logical sequel to "Days Of Being Wild." Dropping off a couple more times back into that earlier refrain, they do a nice job building things up and letting them rip full on.
"All St. Day" follows it up with another fairly blistering track, including some blistering vocals during the chorus while "Crowning Of A Heart" marks what is probably the weakest point on the release, as the group just sort of goes through the motions on what might be their most radio-friendly track ever. "Counting Off The Days" takes things down to an acoustic level, but mixes in some subtle strings and horns for a completely different sound for the group. Not content for that to be enough, "Intelligence" closes out the album with an over-compressed beat and an almost industrial sounding beat and guitars. Sounding something like The Faint with a bit more of a jagged edge, it's definitely quite a style change for the group, and might be one of the only times you hear something like it from them. Still, it's a good track and yet another interesting entry from the group, who manages to keep things changed up for nearly the entire release. With the disparity in sound on the different tracks, several of them could very well be toss-offs to fill up space, but most of them work pretty well anyway, so it's hard to complain.
Rating: 7.25
