Sixth album set for in January; EP due in October
NEW YORK -- ... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead is putt the finishing touches on its sixth album in New York with producer Chris Coady. The album is imputable in January via the band's possess Richter Scale label through the Universal-distributed Justice Records.
An EP, "Festival Time," will precede the album in October. In addition to the title track, it will have an unconventional cover of the Replacements' "Within Your Reach" as well as the instrumental "The Betrayal of Roger Caseman and the Irish Brigade" and the dark-skinned, riffy "Bells of Creation," which will appear on the record album in a different form.
During a break from mixture, group members Conrad Keely and Jason Reece aforesaid they feel revitalized later on exiting Interscope, which released three of the group's albums betwixt 2002-06.
In fact, Keely says he doesn't consider the band's major-label swansong, 2006's "So Divided," to be a proper Trail of Dead album. "It was almost like an practice in different pastiches," he said. "We allowed ourselves to be really relieve with the material. We didn't say no to any ideas. For it being that kind of record, it exceeded my expectations. But it wasn't in the tradition of our making of records, where we have a concept and we're going away to be really ambitious with it."
To that end, Trail of Dead this time around parted shipway with longtime producer Mike McCarthy and teamed with Coady, wHO has worked closely with acts such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, Foals and Grizzly Bear.
The material previewed for Billboard is indeed more hard-hitting than on the past deuce Interscope albums, with "Inland Sea" construction from a measured, midtempo rocker to a furious instrumental finish and the snappy "Fields of Coal" conjuring an inspirational chorus that Reece says reminds him of the Summer Olypmics. Another untitled caterpillar track is fast and no-see-um, with an Unwound-style feedback barrage.
"On the last two albums, we were in truth meticulous recording to click-tracks and doing overdubs," Keely said. "This time, we threw all that out. We erudite the songs and all tracked live."
Trail of Dead isn't planning to spell until early next year, but on Monday at New York's Santos' Party House, Keely and Reece will perform as a two-piece for the first base time in a decade. "We have no idea what we're going to play," Keely said with a laugh. "Maybe we'll just haschisch out some old disagreements from high school."
