Concert Review: …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead at the Granada Theater (February 19)

by Erin Rice

Two days after releasing their latest album, Century of Self, Austin's ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead opened their national tour at the Granada Theater. No stranger to Dallas, the progressive rock outfit played Club Dada's patio stage in November to a crowd barely one-third the size of that which filled out the Greenville mainstay's lower level Thursday evening.

While their set felt short, Trail of Dead played a dozen or so tunes spanning several records, including Source Tags and Codes (2002), Worlds Apart (2005), and the new release. Absent from the set (to the best of my recollection) were any tracks from their previous album, So Divided (2006), which received accolades for its experimental songwriting, but lost some of the band's die-hard noise followers.

With Century of Self, Trail of Dead balance their earlier power rock standard with a keen sense of epic orchestration to nudge the prog envelope. This "return to form," as many reviewers are characterizing the new effort, is evident in the tour's set list. While the crowd appreciated hearing older favorites, including "Will You Smile Again for Me" and "Homage," they listened intently as the band introduced newer tunes such as "Bells of Creation."

There are certain elements one can always expect with a Trail of Dead show and, for the most part, tonight was no different. Relying heavily on anthemic, driving beats, their set up always includes a pair of drum kits set opposite each other at center stage. But, unlike previous shows, they didn't appear to include songs that featured the drummers "facing off" against one another, though there were a several in which they played concurrently.

Fully featured, however, were the multi-instrumental talents of the band members. At any given time, Conrad Keely may be singing, playing guitar, or sitting down at a second keyboard. Along with fellow founding member Jason Reece (drums, guitar), the two shared the bulk of mic time, taking the lead on songs that underscore their individual vocal strengths. In accord with their grandiose tuneage, there's no shortage of theatrics as band members constantly shift positions to cram in backup singers or attempt to navigate a multitude of instruments taking up stage space.