So I guess that around May/June time will be 10 years since I first listened to Source Tags & Codes, the 2002 album by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. The album got the rare 10 rating on Pitchfork, a decision the publication even questioned themselves in the review for the next record the band made. But me being the Pitchfork-head I was a decade ago thought the album had to be really good, one-of-a-kind, if they gave it a 10. And, yeah, I was fully convinced on that first listen. The songs are dramatic, sometimes enchanting and mysterious, sometimes melodic, sometimes noisy… feelings and dynamic vary all across the spectrum. The band had three songwriters, and their personalities showed in the respective tracks they sing lead vocals on. I liked that aspect too.

Yet, with all that being said, it’s not an album I really seek to listen to in full these days. Been like that for a while, actually. I guess it just tapped into attitudes that the 19-year-old person I was had that the soon-to-be 29-year-old probably lost along the way. It’s a sad thing, to be sure. That doesn’t stop the fact that there are some great songs on there. Two of them I’ve already written about, I think they’re just timeless, and ‘Relative Ways’ is the third and final one from the album and by the band that’ll get a post on this place. I swear, it’s a coincidence that the three songs I like the most from the record are sung by guitarist Conrad Kelly. I would suggest ‘Heart in the Hand of the Matter‘ if you want to hear a song by drummer Jason Reece, or ‘Baudelaire’ by former bass player Neil Busch to get other perspectives. But I guess it’s Kelly’s work that left the largest impression.

‘Relative Ways’ marks the start of the reflective final leg of Source Tags…, which comes to an end with the emphatic title track closer, and, to me, it seems to be a case of a song that’s about the process of writing a song. Kelly expresses his difficulties in trying to sum up what he wants to say, what with literally everything that happens in the world, either naturally or manmade, but finds solace in that whatever happens will happen and it will all come together eventually. It could take a lifetime, or a couple of days, but the ideas will form and something will come out of it. I guess it must be rather frustrating being a person whose job it is to write songs but to feel like anything you try to compose is terrible, and Kelly envisions a saint coming down from the heavens to forgive for any mistakes he’s made that’ll help him to carry on. So overall, it’s a very optimistic song about letting things happen and self-forgiveness. It’s awesome, really. Moments I enjoy: The switch-up between 3/4 and 4/4 time in the instrumental breaks, Kelly’s shouting vocals for the song’s second half and how the guitars drown out his voice in the tension-building section near the end. Makes for some good, good listening.