...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
Critic Score
Based on 15 reviews
2002 Ratings: #42 / 259
User Score
Based on 262 ratings
2002 Rank: #113
Liked by 39 people
February 26, 2002 / Release Date
LP / Format
Interscope / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Pitchfork

Dense, beautiful, intricate, haunting, explosive, and dangerous, this is everything rock music aspires to be: intense, incredible songs arranged perfectly and performed with skill and passion. Source Tags and Codes 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. And you will never, ever be the same.

100
AllMusic

A driving, incredibly solid album, Source Tags & Codes proves just how much more the members of AYWKUBTTOD have to say -- they're just as combustible as they were on their debut, but now express themselves with a clarity that makes their intensity all the more breathtaking.

100
Sputnikmusic

The catharsis of Source Tags & Codes is simple and easily disposed of, by necessity, after such a dense and debilitating listen. It’s the only fitting conclusion.

91
Entertainment Weekly
Hardcore punk outbursts alternate with art-rock feedback flights and dreamy bits of melody that somehow fuse into a coherent, often spectacular, album. If this is the new major-label rock, things are looking up.
90
Tiny Mix Tapes

Many songs on Source Tags start off with fierce energy but eventually segue into a slower, quieter section that entices the listener, only waiting to explode again.

80
NME
With so much to play for, so much Butch-And-Sundance, death-or-glory adrenalin, ‘Source Tags And Codes’ leaves you feeling that the killing can wait for another day. For now, we dance.
80
No Ripcord
This album is essential for anyone who likes their indie rock raw and powerful - if you don't believe me just go away and listen to the ultra-melodic How Near, How Far and the epic Monsoon. Still don't believe me?
80
Uncut
Compared to so many noisemongers, TOD understand that restraint enables unleashed firepower to be exhilarating and awesome.
70
Drowned in Sound
That’s why this is such an important record in the …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead saga. The vitriol’s the same. The drum rolls are the same. The hair-dye-and-bowl-cut’s are the same. The attitude’s the same. They’ve just taken a step forward.
70
Rolling Stone
The elegant swoop of the melody to "Baudelaire" doesn't stop them from using it as a battering ram, but even at their most savage, Trail of Dead know that the most important part of a tornado is the calm at its eye.
70
Alternative Press
The band's most obviously emo album to date.
60
Q Magazine
...Trail of Dead have reached a point where the need for convention outweighs the joy of using guitars as weapons.
TheBoredCritic
NR

How is it that for Pitchfork this album is perfect and better than Let It Be by The Beatles?

depechemode4lif
86

Solid post hardcore that sonically reminds me of Cursive and At The Drive In mixed together with a Bright Eyes level of weird lofi ambient pieces inbetween songs. Hands down a solid album in this genre and one that is deserved of it's praise across the board.

dearsongs
NR

yeah yeah pfork gave it a 10 (and they just re-scored Madonna dropping an 8.7 this passed Sunday). These guys were CRAZY live back in the day. Swapping instruments throughout, destroying stages and ears along the way.

This album comes out swinging and doesn't let up much. Good old classic indie ROCK record.

depechemode4lif
86

Solid post hardcore that sonically reminds me of Cursive and At The Drive In mixed together with a Bright Eyes level of weird lofi ambient pieces inbetween songs. Hands down a solid album in this genre and one that is deserved of it's praise across the board.

NTCV
100

Pitchfork was actually right on this one

QDOERTY
80

I wish they did more piano centric songs, and incorporated more piano in their noisy songs in general.

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