And You Will Know

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.

The sense of liberation that rejuvenated …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead on The Century of Self, the band’s first album on their own Richter Scale imprint, continues on The Tao of The Dead. Indeed, the way Conrad Keely and company flex their brains and muscles here, without any confines except the ones they make for themselves, makes The Century of Self feel like a dress rehearsal. It's easy to see why any other label might not want to take a risk on an album like this: it’s divided into two parts, it’s written in two specific tunings, and the album artwork is the first installment of Keely's steampunk graphic novel. Yet these are exactly the kind of things - along with the music, of course - that make the Trail of Dead special: they revel in grand sounds and grand concepts…

Five years on from the release of their previous record, Austin’s beloved art-rock heroes …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead return with their tenth album – X: The Godless Void and Other Stories.