In the canon of popular culture where slander and reputation matter most, no accusation is shunned by musicians more vehemently than selling out.
Skimming the surface, the claim appears relatively simple: the sacrificing of an artist's integrity, usually spurred by pecuniary incentives or over-willingness to appeal to a certain demographic.
As last year's shadow looms, several acts try to assuage their still searing brandings. Shelby Lynne and Dave Matthews bear the scarlet S after conjured images of sweet-toothed hooks and commercial crossovers led them to Glen Ballard's painfully overwrought production and demolished credibility.
But somewhere along the line, selling-out got more complicated, especially emerging from the murky, haughty labyrinth of indie rock, where acts must eschew the man at all costs. From this view, selling out becomes simultaneously simpler and more convoluted based on a singular concept: seeking distribution and funding from a major label spurs artistic sacrifice and betrayal.
The argument has some merit. Each year, hoards of indie phenoms dripping with promise sign to major labels, but, overwhelmed with a glut of production resources and a false security from premature success, fall down the spiral of exploitation and over-expectation that leads to mediocrity. Just ask Creeper Lagoon.
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Rarely, though, a group manages to take advantage of refined production to further its ultimate aims, not just continue them. Elliot Smith's "XO," Modest Mouse's "The Moon and Antarctica," and Dismemberment Plan's "Change" alone can bear the brunt of this contention.
Now Austin, TX's ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead joins this exclusive group of artists, and in doing so has created 2002's first great album.
As expected from a band possessing an infamous reputation for live shows that resemble riots, "Source Tags and Codes" is an album of staggering, erupting power. But where Trail of Dead used to rely solely on the brute force of its ominous sonic capabilities, it now combines equally jarring songwriting and atmosphere.
One track in, the album already has revealed its ambition. "It Was There That I Saw You" teasingly begins as static flirts with a menacing guitar lick, but suddenly the band launches into a pulsating Sonic Youth hysteria of cymbal crashing and the manic shrieks of guitars and drummer/singer Conrad Keely. Leading on to be another track from previous album "Madonna," the roar quickly drops out to expose two naked guitars caressing the silence only to be joined by the rest of the band and a delicate string section en route to another explosion.
"Another Morning Stoner" finds middle ground between the two extremes, contrasting shimmering guitars and subtle strings with singer/guitarist Kevin Allen's emotional confrontation, revealing an invigorated penchant for nuances of previously hidden emotion. "Is heaven to you a perfect place? The look of sorrow on a sufferer's face?" he questions.
Trail of Dead reaches an internal catharsis on "Heart in the Hand of the Matter" when Allen confesses, "I'm so damned I can't win / My heart in my hands again." Adding fuel to the fire is a production that echoes both the lyrical rawness, in intertwined guitars, and the lyrical poignancy, in the comping piano.
"Homage" and "Days of Wild" summon fellow, now defunct, Texans At the Drive-In in their incomparable aggressiveness, but Trail of Dead exercises a slow-loud control that ATDI, despite all its histrionics, never had.
"Relative Ways" rides the album's strongest rhythm as it morphs within a tight framework of its propulsive romp, led by Keely's drumming and some escalating but hypnotically soothing chord progressions.
When the title track finally arrives, senses and expectations are so damaged by Trail of Dead's unprecedented discipline that nothing, even the weakest track, could dislodge its impact. But instead of retracting, the group goes for the kill: intoxicating swirls of strings, pianos, bells, guitars and percussion deftly mesh as they shift tempos and textures, leading into a orchestrated string coda befitting of the album's epic grasp.
Channeling fearless initiative, "Source Tags and Codes" proudly touts the spirit of an independent album but shines with such dense and meticulous production, achievable only through major means, that its classification is just as much of an enigma as its music is.
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