Source Tags and Codes

Recording and production

After releasing two albums on indie record imprints, Trail of Dead signed a multi-release deal with Interscope Records and began recording a follow-up to 1999's Madonna with the same producer, Mike McCarthy. Their major label budget improved recording quality and allowed intricate orchestral pieces, yielding a sound texture unlike previous records. Source Tags & Codes was recorded in Cotati, California and mixed in Nashville, Tennessee on a budget of 150,000 dollars.

Music

The song 'Baudelaire' refers to the French poet, Charles Baudelaire, and 'Days of Being Wild' is named after the Hong Kong film of the same name. "After the Laughter" samples the song "Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)" written by Jimmie Hodges and performed by Mary Margaret Ragan. The song "Homage" is a homage to Unwound. On the day "Homage" was recorded, producer Mike McCarthey woke Keely up that morning by throwing cold water in his face for him to be aggressive enough to record the drum track.

In the song "It Was There That I Saw You": "Keely had intended to conjure up the intoxicating thrill of living in Austin Texas in the mid-nineties, before America had gone to shit. The inspiration came from a girl he used to work with that he had a crush on, and several late nights spent in the company of people on drugs" [1]

The title of "Another Morning Stoner" refers to getting an erection in the morning or smoking marijuana. The song is inspired by Keelys relationship with his ex-girlfriend who was raised Christian. "It recalls a moral dilemma he underwent when he realized that eventually theology would drive them apart more than anything else, because of his strong negative feelings towards organized religion."[2]

Critical reception

Source Tags & Codes was met with critical acclaim, receiving a score of 85 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". The Austin Chronicle's Michael Chamy called Source Tags & Codes "an album that absolutely cannot be ignored", while Billboard's Annie Zaleski stated that "what makes Source Tags & Codes such an amazing album is how the band teeters on the edge of this implosion but always yanks its songs back from collapse at the very last second." Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote that the band "plays imaginative alt-rock with intense passion, and Source Tags & Codes lets the pressure build exquisitely." Noting its "angular, Sonic Youth-style guitar and earnest anger", Blender's Michael Leonard credited the album for being "more engaging than many of [the band's] post-rock peers", while Uncut similarly wrote that "compared to so many noisemongers, TOD understand that restraint enables unleashed firepower to be exhilarating and awesome." Matt LeMay of Pitchfork Media awarded Source Tags & Codes a perfect score and wrote that the album "will take you in, rip you to shreds, piece you together, lick your wounds clean, and send you back into the world with a concurrent sense of loss and hope," though Conrad Keely considers this rating to be "preposterous", as "it is clearly nowhere close to a perfect album".

Hobey Echlin of The Village Voice wrote that Source Tags & Codes "captures the fuzzy-math sound from too many gray-area indie bands—and it rocks hard where geezers like Mercury Rev just drift away." Mojo described the album as "not a crossover record, but invigorating." Among average reviews, Q felt that the band "has reached a point where the need for convention outweighs the joy of using guitars as weapons." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau awarded the album a "dud" rating, indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought." While noting that "there's a fantastic EP in here somewhere", Maddy Costa of The Guardian nonetheless felt that the album "is ablaze with emotion – it roars and pulses and oozes angst – but it never inspires".

Kludge included it on their list of best albums of 2002. In 2009, Source Tags & Codes was placed at number 100 in Pitchfork Media's list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.

Track listing

All tracks written by ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.

"Invocation", "Life Is Elsewhere" and "Blood Rites" are not included on the North American release of the album.

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.