“Tommy gun
Bloodlust
A perfect teenhood
FUCK YOU”

Fuck you? Fuck me, never have I felt so exhilarated. It’s not like I didn’t know, like I wasn’t fully prepared for the now ten-legged rock and roll monster that is this Texan troupe, this band of brothers that leave nothing but death and quite possibly tinnitus in their wake. I knew it’d be savage, with blood on the walls and sweat on the ceiling, but damn, as I stand here smiling like a fucking idiot child, I never once anticipated such ferocity. The naysayers can keep their false idols glamorised in the gutter press; the true believers can toss the deceivers onto the pyre and scatter their ashes over town from the peak of King’s Reach Tower – this is rock and motherfucking roll.

They’re like gods up there – legs spread, eyes wide, hands reaching from a front row desperate to touch everything their parents told them to steer clear of. You can see the passion in their eyes, mirroring ours; you can still hear the bile and vitriol in the delivery of ‘Mistakes And Regrets’. Her name is still at the top of that list, and on every line after it, of that you can be sure. Cut this band and they will bleed rock and roll soul for you in a way unseen and unheard since Led Zeppelin. The dual drumkits are hammered like a war’s coming; guitars are mangled and beaten until they’re breathing their last, desperate for a swift fatal blow. We… we just stand here, smiling, breathing it all in, feeling our way through the maelstrom. ‘Caterwaul’ and ‘Classic Art Showcase’ might be new songs, but they feel as vital as anything else does; ‘How Near How Far’ is triumphant, ‘Another Morning Stoner’ divine, ‘Totally Natural’ brings the fucking ceiling in, sweat and all. The death blows are delivered, and it’s over.

They’re smiling, I’m smiling, we’re all smiling. The cold night air hits us like an alarm clock after a beautiful dream. The real world seems somehow different as I skip to the tube station, mind full of too many superlatives to ever write here and retain any coherence. Trail Of Dead are the rock band of a lifetime, our lifetime. Fuck the others where they lie in their gutters. A million out of five.

Photo by Gen Williams