…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - “How Near How Far” from Source Tags and Codes
When I first started hearing about Trail of Dead, it was almost exclusively about how reckless their live shows were - blood, broken instruments, violence, emotional instability. It was appealing to me and made me want to check out them out in the hopes they hadn’t lost that fire in their jump to a major label. I don’t know about their live show, but the music definitely didn’t appear to lose that spark. I loved this album in that unique way where I never cared to check out anything previous to it or after it because it provided exactly what I wanted from them.
I especially loved this song, which was a mixtape staple for years. It’s a truly dreary masterpiece that reminds me of winter and cold drives in Sears’ van as we took trips into the city, the east coast, or wherever. This song also has one of my favorite “accidents,” which may or may not have been calculated. At 3:12 there is a single clap that always sticks out to me. It’s a nice touch that feels like a mistake that sounded cool, so they left it in. I love little touches like that.
