Apocalypse Wow

Taking a name like ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, a band limits itself to exactly two options: merciless parody, or merciless ass-kicking. It may seem anachronistic for four white guys to bust out, sans irony, with the express intent of rocking us into the next world--but three albums into the their career, no one doubts that they mean it.

On Source Tags and Codes they prove they can do it, and after hearing this album it's no longer possible to say their name in anything but hushed and solemn tones. You do know them, and the trail of dead is long and gruesome--would-be messiahs of the return of rock like the Strokes, At The Drive-In and the White Stripes lie slaughtered in the fields, guitar strings busted and drum sets scattered like kindling.

Trail of Dead are too sophisticated to be metal, and too sinister to be punk. Satanic bands miss the point: worshipping the devil is childish, impotent. These four are prophets, mighty horsemen sent to us with a message: The end is indeed coming, and you might as well rock out in time to it. All of Hades is their garage--the headlining band on the tour of apocalypse.

But where their fury used to unhinge in chaos, it now churns with a precise and fascinating logic. Punishing guitars grind over pounding beats and churning layers of noise, but buried within the dense mix is a swirling conflation of sinister carnival organs, pianos, orchestras and machine-gun blasts. The threat of catastrophic collapse seems to loom at every moment, but without ever losing pace, the album marches on.

"Baudelaire" grooves with slick sociopath swagger, presiding over the album's turbulent first half. The fabric of the world is ripped and the earth cracks open, spewing forth what sounds like armies of darkness. The Dark One reigns at their helm, sporting black shades and belting out lines like "I've written every line/every contour of the middle eye/Painted in my mind/on canvases of time", and, goddamn, he is sexy as hell.

In the end--the toxic rubble still smoking--"Relative Ways" preaches mercy and forgiveness before fading into soothing washes of radio static and a soft piano dirge. Trail of Dead rise up again on the title track, loud as ever, but transformed into something like revelation. A rapturous ballad that rings like bells and soars with all the righteous glory of hope: "Take me from this place I know/The ruined landscapes that I once called home." They've earned the balladry. By annihilating everything in sight, ÉAnd You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead has made terror beautiful.