“It Was There That I Saw You” - …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
(Words/music: Trail of Dead, available on Source Tags & Codes, Interscope 2002)

At the time, Source Tags & Codes was the most visceral album I owned.  It wasn’t the kind of record I thought about (and thus I probably missed out on the semiotics inferred by the title) or connected with on an emotional level.  Instead, I remember it was something I’d feel when listening to it.  I’d heard louder albums, I’d heard faster album, and I’d heard heavier albums.  But the first time I listened to the record (home for the summer from college, sitting on my parents’ floor playing F-Zero on Super Nintendo), the album felt like this huge wave crashing against me.  The grand sound – in volume but also in ambition, hit me in a way that rendered me speechless.  The guitars and drums rushed out of the speaker the way an medieval army rushes into battle in a movie.  This assault wasn’t flawless – the “general” Conrad Keeley sounded like the nasally tactician rather than Achilles (and I still can’t listen to “Another Morning Stoner” without hearing Keeley breathe in before each line), but it seemed like it while it was playing.  During an era where I thought a lot about my favorite music (like the narrative I wanted to impose on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), Source Tags & Codes was an anomaly – when it was on, I marveled at it, and when it stopped I had almost nothing to say.  It’s one of the few records that I enjoyed that generally left me speechless.

“It Was There That I Saw You” encapsulates most of the “tricks” that Source Tags & Codes uses in its plan of attack. After a few seconds of static and radios tuning, the song uncoils like a snake attacking its prey.  In less than a minute, the band empties their barrels and recoils and rests.  Where other bands might stretch this minute into a two and a half minute song (or leave it as a sixty two second track – a far more appealing alternative), the band pulls the tempo back and plays a darkly melodic middle section.  This instrumental bridge, nearly half of the song’s running time, shows that the band excels at a lower tempo and intensity, and after the opening punch of the song’s first minute, it’s a welcome reprieve.  Whether it sounds like Sonic Youth at their slower moments or not, its the charm that lures the snake back out.  Granted, it could be the sonic equivalent of the snake gracefully slithering across the floor – looking more entrancing than excitable – but nonetheless the opening assault returns for a final reprieve.  Even though it’s almost identical to the first minute, it sounds equally as urgent and assailing as the first strike.  It’s this cycle of rawness and polished sheen that makes the album hit as hard as it does, and even if they revealed all their methods on the first track, they still work on the rest of the disc.

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