You mean there is one? Fuck yeah.
"With their new record coming out October 3 on Interscope, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead are putting the rock-mobile into overdrive. They have just* announced the dates of their autumn tour with the Blood Brothers, who also have a forthcoming album. We wish all the best 4 the band on this tour and hope the new album is worlds apart from the last one.
The Blood Brothers album is called Young Machetes and is due out October 10 on V2. Crimes/Sleater-Kinney producer John Goodmanson and Guy Picciotto of Fugazi produced the record, and considering that Fugazi probably won't be releasing new material anytime soon (never say "never," right?), this is probably your best chance to feast on some of that good old Picciotto sound" Pitchfork
The tour is coming to venues in Toronto AND Montreal next month, the fifth and sixth of November, which happen to be the two days leading up to my birthday. I'm hopefully headed to the latter. Money is tight, but it's a safe bet that a money laden birthday is nigh, so I'll take a chance on the thirty dollar bus tickets and twenty one dollar admission.
I've never seen either of the bands put on a show, but I've heard some mixed reports. ToD are legendary, for sure, and I'm all for bands kicking the shit out of equipment they've spent thousands of dollars on and need to make their living. The Bloods, if unconfirmable rumours from high school students can be believed, are hit and miss. I'm not sure if I'd pay money to see Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney do their thing if they couldn't do it in key. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a stickler for technical acuity in music, but have you heard those motherfuckers? One note out of place and they could cut you.
More important than that, however, is both bands' shiny new albums. There's no way either of these outfits are going to be at less than peak performance when just getting out of the gates with new material. ToD's So Divided dropped today, I think, but I've yet to get my mitts on it.
TBB's Young Machetes is due out next week, but I've been blessed with a promotional copy. I've given it a few listens, but I still can't quite give a sober analysis of it. The initial rush of "OMGZ SHINY AND NEW", and all pertinent euphoria, has settled down into fairly calm percolation, but beyond that I'm still digesting it. It's good, and I'm sure it's going alienate fans, both the pre and post Crimes kind. There's no mistaking the Blood's style or form. It's post-Hardcore of the most frenetic persuasion, but I'd say it's fair to call YM their tightest realization of it yet. I don't want to say "fullest" or "deepest" or "best" just yet, but holy cow do the Brothers rock out.
There was talk, months ago, about a possible break up for TBB, when the members were going off piecemeal to other projects, namely Neon Blonde and Headwound City. It looked bad, but with YM in hand it's apparent that these guys working out their own shit for a while has made the band stronger than ever. Previous albums worked on the basis of each member completely flying off the handle within their respective roles, with the occasional straight ahead piece like Ambulance vs Ambulance punctuating more aggressive freakouts. The new songs are different in that they've got the best of both worlds without losing any bite.
Jordan, who was put in a bit of a secondary role for Crimes, is much more prevalent in these tracks and sounds better than he ever has. I'm thinking being numero uno in Headwound City did wonders for him. Johnny's still Johnny, and I don't think fans would have their favourite manbanshee any other way. The weird piano flourishes and synthetic touches, care of bassist Morgan Henderson, which were a bit too overbearing in Neon Blonde have found a comfortable home on tracks like Spit Shine Your Black Clouds (which is also probably the first TBB song one can properly shake one's ass too).
Mark Gajadhar is my favourite drummer in punk music- goddamn that man is creative. He's a little reserved and cymbal crazy for too many tracks on YM, but drumming like that in Set Fire to the Face on Fire and Vital Beach is just not to be fucked with.
I hope it stands up to repeated listens, I can't be sure just yet. I am sure that it'll make for a hell of a good show.
I think I'll appropriate CFRC's copy of So Divided. I need to swing by to pitch my Drum n' Bass idea at them, so I'll be in the neighbourhood.
I wonder what time it is.
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