X [LP/CD]

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

Overview

X: The Godless Void and Other Stories appeared at a timely point in ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's career. It arrived six years after the release of 2014's IX, during which time Conrad Keely returned from Cambodia to the band's home base of Austin, Texas, and also coincided with their 25th anniversary. It makes sense, then, that their tenth album finds them taking stock. As ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead explore how people become more themselves over time while everything else changes, they deliver their most emotionally direct music in quite a while. Their need to follow their hearts -- even if they get a little broken along the way -- has dominated their music since Source Tags & Codes, and the tension between cathartic freedom and poignancy is as powerful on X: The Godless Void and Other Stories as it was on that landmark album. They've grown into their reflective side over the years, and they've rarely sounded as relatable, or affecting, as they do here. This is particularly true of the brilliant "Don't Look Down," a look back that isn't so much a wish to return to the past as a realization of just how big the gulf between then and now is. With its gently surging melody and incisive lyrics ("I have another set of eyes/that I use to disguise/the part of me that died/I have another set of lives/I use to describe/The part that's still alive"), it immediately makes itself known as one of the band's finest songs. Time and again, AYWKUBTTOD return to the distance between past and present on X: The Godless Void and Other Stories. On "Gravity," they characterize it as the forces that literally hold us down (or back); on "Something Like This," they capture how feelings and memories inevitably fade, even when we've done our best to preserve them. These songs carry so much weight that when the band casts it off, it's all the more liberating. "Gone" builds from a whisper to a satisfying roar, while the hurtling "Into the Godless Void" is a funeral pyre for regrets. Though the album is fairly lean, each song has more than enough musical heft to convey the enormity of the band's emotions, especially on "Children of the Sky," which pays tribute to a fallen friend, and "Blade of Wind," one of the most unfettered epics here. When the relentless beat of "Through the Sunlit Door" drives the album to its close, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead confront life's inevitable changes and endings with the inner strength that has defined their music since the beginning. A quarter century after they formed, X: The Godless Void and Other Stories is triumphant proof that they're as passionate as ever. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	01/24/2020
Label:	Inside Out Music
UPC:	0190759668412
Rank:	108653

Tracks

Disc 1

1. Opening Crescendo
2. All Who Wander
3. Something Like This
4. Into the Godless Void
5. Don't Look Down
6. Gone
7. Children of the Sky
8. Who Haunts the Haunter
9. Eyes of the Overworld
10. Gravity
11. Blade of Wind
12. Through the Sunlit Door

Disc 2

13. Opening Crescendo
14. All Who Wander
15. Something Like This
16. Into the Godless Void
17. Don't Look Down
18. Gone
19. Children of the Sky
20. Who Haunts the Haunter
21. Eyes of the Overworld
22. Gravity
23. Blade of Wind
24. Through the Sunlit Door

Album Credits

Performance Credits

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead   Primary Artist
Cully Symington   Drums
Aaron Blount   Guitar
Will Courtney   Vocals (Background)
Autry Fulbright II   Bass
Jamie Miller   Drums,Percussion

Technical Credits

Jason Reece   Composer
Conrad Keely   Design,Artwork,Composer,Producer
Charles Godfrey   Producer
Peter Van Riet   Mastering