IX

"On this belting ninth album, ...Trail Of Dead's resurgence continues, further reining in the prog excesses that diluted their '00s efforts (`Source Tags & Codes', `Worlds Apart'). Themed around death and loss, `IX' sees the Texans at their most focused and thrilling".

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"With IX, the solidified band is feeling confident enough to take another stab at the cinemascopic, candelabra-lit pop that defined Trail of Dead's muddled mid-period output, but this time with a lesson-learned sense of restraint. So while IX sees Trail of Dead rolling out the piano and enlisting a string section once again (the album contains not one, but two interstitial chamber-rock crash-endos), in this case, the ornate touch-ups don't come at the expense of the band's roiling energy ... While the band may have struggled in the past to reconcile their post-hardcore roots with their art-rock ambitions, more often than not, IX marks the spot".

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