...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - The Century of Self

The Century of Self is a pretty solid album, although I don't find myself enjoying it as much as Trail of Dead's last few efforts. I know I'm in the minority as far as liking what they've done in the last few years, but it's the unique touches they put on the songs that seem to be missing from their latest. It's pretty loud, competent rock music, it just doesn't grab me. It's a bit of a return to their former sound, as someone besides Conrad is allowed to sing for what seems like the first time in forever, and those songs sort of feel like a back to basics thing. This is most notable in "Far Pavilions", a pretty fast-paced song after the obligatory bombastic intro "The Giants Causeway", which is at least mostly cobbled from one of the tracks on the Festival Thyme EP, leaving the title track as the only unique part of that release.

The album is pretty neatly divided into halves, with the first being loud and heavy, and "Inland Sea" begins to mark the transition before "Luna Park" goes into the full-on slow and piano-centric mode. "Ascending" doesn't quite fit but does have a slower section to it. "Isis Unveiled" is probably my favorite song, with a nice driving sound most of the time and a cool chanting breakdown in the middle. "Insatiable" parts one and two seem to be just two halves of the same song, and I'm not sure why they're broken up with a few tracks in between. Together they make a decent closing track with a nice piano part, you just hear the first couple minutes before it actually gets around to ending. All in all I liked it, just not as much as I hoped.