Search - And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead :: Source Tags & Codes

With their first major-label release, Austin's most destructive live act will hopefully move from notoriety for trashing their instruments to appreciation for the way they use them. Source Tags & Codes is the third release from the band with the long name, and it is a volatile time bomb of emo, art rock, and post rock that explodes with emotion on every song. The walls of guitar effects and tense, heated vocals provide the band's driving aggression, but they soften the blows with bouts of dark melody, even adding strings and piano in places. The album should please fans of bands such as At the Drive In, Unwound, and Les Savy Fav, but Source Tags & Codes weighs in as heavier, noisier, and, in places, more tormented and beautiful than those bands. With enough twists in its movements to ward off any signs of predictability, Source Tags & Codes is an impressive rock collage that exposes new musical layers with each listen. --Jennifer Maerz