Listenable (3.5/5)

so, i'm still not breaking them into the echelon. however, i need to acknowledge a higher level of maturity here.

it's not really as though we can talk about returns as the trail of dead always split their records up between loud and quiet tracks. nor is the disc void of quiet tracks. however, the ratio has shifted more towards the louder material, which i'm sure pleased some fans.

personally, to me, the issue is never going to be whether or not the record is quiet or loud but whether it's creative or not and whether it's enjoyable or not. while this disc is louder, i have to admit that i'm missing the abstract songwriting that punctuated - which means jumped up at points rather than defined or saturated - the previous two. the drumming's solid, and the builds are big, and the guitars are raunchy, but there's not really any studio tricks or flat out weirdness to trip out into.

that being said, i think this is also an improvement, as a record, over their earlier stuff. it's a much more even disc, in the sense that there really aren't any brutal must-skip tracks. yet, the highs aren't quite what they were, either. please note that the grading is based on the disc as a whole rather than the strength of individual tracks on the record; this may not have any single track that is as groovy as another morning stoner, but the record as a whole is more consistent.

so, while i might be running the risk of getting mail bombed for this, i have to think of this as them closing the thought on their early period, and putting together a number of extrapolated loose ends that may have eluded them then, all in the goal of producing the disc that they really wanted to produce but didn't before they move on. whether they managed to accomplish that is another question, one that will probably mostly be answered in the negative.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/The+Century+Of+Self/3067030