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In a recent interview Trail Of Dead’s lead reaper (as it were) Conrad Keely was a man thoroughly exhausted with the series of evil machinations that is the modern music industry. Frustrated at his band’s low sales, bored of touring, powerless to change the Top 40, and disillusioned after being ignored for so long, despite four LPs of varying epic-ness and unhinged brilliance, it’s a wonder that ‘So Divided’ has even seen the light of day. Perhaps even more surprising is that, despite Keely’s opinion of his own band as “more-or-less insignificant”, the record’s eleven tracks swell with the sort of heavy sonic imagery, illusions of grandeur and layers and layers of barmy ideas not heard since ‘Black Holes And Revelations’.
When the sound of the audience from the ominous instrumental ‘Intro: A Song Of Fire And Wine’ crosses into the beginning of ‘Stand In Silence’, it’s almost as if Keely is projecting his image of where he thinks Trail Of Dead ought to be (walking onto the Reading main stage to complete euphoria) onto the listener, knowing that the reality will never match his aspirations. What makes it all the more bittersweet is that ‘Stand In Silence’ is a fantastic slice of chart-hugging, camp punk melodrama that sounds like nothing less than an off-cut from ‘The Black Parade’.
A similarly ornate, embellished attitude pervades the rest of ‘So Divided’, not all of it so successful. The chanted, accordion-driven prologue to ‘Wasted State Of Mind’ is begging to be sung back to the instrument-slaying Texans in a sweaty backwoods venue, but the effect palls after the fifth or six repetition. ‘Naked Sun’ shows Kasabian how to pull off dirty glam, but is stretched to over six minutes without any discernible effect bar some shrieking brass. The title-track goes furthest by dispensing for the need of any structure whatsoever, and is simply crescendo after crescendo.
A welcome Guided By Voices cover (‘Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory’), and ‘Eight Day Hell’, the first and only time Trail Of Dead will take inspiration from The Polyphonic Spree (no, we’re not kidding), are light respites from the over-elaboration. But they’re not enough to shake the slight disappointment. Trail Of Dead have always sounded like they’re throwing everything into the mix in the hope that something sticks; when they added in a focus and assurance, the results were crystallised in 2002’s urgent masterpiece ‘Source Tags And Codes’. ‘So Divided’ has its killer moments. If only they weren’t so laboured.
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