The old adage states that music is ultimately a business; unfortunately, business just seems to regularly get in the way of music.  Such was the case for …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, a group that went from next big thing to artistically stifled in just a handful of years.  But with the band’s latest offering, the critically lauded The Century of Self, the quintet seems to have found a steadfast rejuvenation.  Some would say that the Trail of Dead is back from the dead, others that the band never left at all.  Either way, the group – once candidates for best underground rock band in the country – has unquestionably found a rebirth and with it has come some of the most challenging and ambitious work of the band’s career.

“I guess when you’re considered the next big thing, buzz-band bullshit … I guess you’re supposed to be the next Nirvana or something.  Are you supposed to take it to that level?” asked Jason Reece, founder and part-time frontman of Trail of Dead.  The group has just finished an in-store performance at Austin’s celebrated Waterloo Records, wrapping up a stay in the city that the band formerly called home base.  “I think we just wanted to look at our careers more like Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth … I guess when we were on a major label, we thought we could have a creative career like that and put out really consistently good, artistic statements.”

It’s hard for Reece or his bandmates – including co-frontman Conrad Keely, guitarist Kevin Allen, drummer Aaron Ford, bassist Jay Phillips, and pianist Clay Morris – to avoid these types of topics.  Trail of Dead once was an up-and-coming darling of the indie world, critically acclaimed for their post-rock-fueled 2002 offering Source Codes and Tags.  The sprawling, epic sound of the album garnered a mythical perfect score by Pitchfork Media (the four-leaf clover of the music industry), and the band’s subsequent buzz ultimately led to a budding cult fan base.  But the tides of industry turned fickle, and the band’s next two releases – 2005’s Worlds Apart and 2006’s So Divided – were met with mixed reviews.  Pitchfork even went so far as to decry their previous 10.0 rating, shying away from the zine’s avid backing of the group.  With each of the band’s successes, the looming elephant in the room pondered whether Trail of Dead had met expectations.

Reece is open, eager, and warmly honest about how perspective has influenced the sextet, even though it’s obvious how much frustration it has provided in the past.

“Oh yeah.  It’s kind of like one of those things where you put out a record … like Worlds Apart, everybody in America seemed to hate it.  But then you go to Europe and it broadened our horizons there.  So it’s like, ‘Holy shit, I guess we didn’t put out a crap, shitty record.’  I don’t think we’ve ever really made a horrible record; I just think we made records that were different from anything we’ve done.”

Whether it was backlash, oversaturation, or merely the band’s need to flex its creative muscle, Trail of Dead’s time with Interscope Records eventually wore down Reece and Co.  Rumors of a breakup circulated, and the band took a kick to the ego when they were asked to open for Dethklok, a comedy rock band formed to capitalize on the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse.

“Well, subconsciously, I think it affects you.  [The people at Interscope] think of units sold, not your heart-wrenching melodrama,” explained Reece with a laugh.  “They don’t think about you … They think about, ‘Oh, yeah, well maybe this has that catchy three-minute hit.  Maybe this will work on radio.’  We just never really thought of our music that way, and I guess the relationship deteriorated.  But when we first started with them, they seemed like they were on board.  Now it’s up to us.”

Judging by The Century of Self, the band was long overdue to be left to its own devices.  They established their own label – Richter Scale – as an offshoot of Justice Records after choosing to terminate their ties with Interscope.

“We could have stayed on the path, but where was it leading?  Do you want to be a part of something where they think of 50 Cent and Gwen Stefani before they think of you?  It insults my pride,” Reece said.  “Everybody in our band just got to the point where [we] don’t give a fuck about this label.  It doesn’t represent me, and I’m tired of defending my choices.  It seemed like the door was open; let’s just go.  Just fuck it.”

Recorded live, The Century of Self is more raw than anything the band has released in years, and as the album plays over the speakers of Waterloo, Reece emanates a certain sense of satisfaction.

After Source Codes, Trail of Dead was expected to consistently reenact the type of band they were in 2002 with each following release.  It was formulaic, and, for the group, confining.  They were expected to be noisy and raucous, to break their instruments after every set (a staple of past performances).  It left the group no room to experiment, no room to grow.  After its set at Waterloo, a few stagehands and managers carefully put the group’s unharmed instruments away as the band met autograph-seekers who were lining around the store.  They seem more mature, but also genuinely content.  The band is excited about interviews, eager to play more songs than the set time allows for.  Trail of Dead is, in a word, reborn, looking more like a band who just put out a debut record than a grizzled veteran of the industry.

The Century of Self is an album that doesn’t compromise or negotiate restrictions.  It is the heart of what Trail of Dead epitomizes: a sense of larger-than-life, bombastic songwriting that never can be pinned down to derivatives.  The songs spread out like a spider web: jagged and capturing, but somehow smooth and connected.  An overlying sense of grandiose ambition sails through every measure and chord.  No moment is too small; no instrument is wasted (“We got more resourceful,” Reece said).  Each song sounds like three tracks packed into one, taking turns transitioning into one another with crashing cymbals and dynamic guitars.

It’s a sound grown out of the Hawaiian bedrooms of Reece and Keely.  Even as a two-piece, the duo had greater aspirations, and the small Pacific islands gave way to a move to Austin.

“I think we always wanted to do [something grandiose].  That’s what we were looking for,” said Reece, whose band name alone proves the sentiment.  “We were influenced by those classic bands like The Who and how they would just take over a room.  And it was, like, huge sounding.  Fugazi was like that.  It was fucking huge.  I love that.”

Fucking huge also describes Trail of Dead’s purpose.  The group embraces the artistic side of music (Keely designs the band’s artwork, with The Century of Self sporting an impressive pen-drawn cover).  For a group so often associated with one gleaming review and a major label fallout, it can be frustrating to try to hold on to artistic values.  But now free of their past shackles, Trail of Dead seem liberated.  Liberated from “next big thing” status, liberated from money-counting suits, and, most significantly, liberated from expectation.  Now, they can just be whatever they want to be.

“Why don’t we do something that would kind of represent where we come from and come up with an aesthetic that way?” Reece asked.  For …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, it’s about time they got the chance.