Check out the pics from the show right here on FL.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead returned in 2009 with a new album, and their first Australian tour since 2004, and they hit the Zoo on a chilly winter night with a fantastic art-rock set, let down only by its finale.

Violent Soho recently returned from the United States where they’ve been working with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace record label. Tonight we got a taste of the new songs, and the good news is that they’re all crackers, ratcheting up the grunge aesthetic, which is hardly a stretch for these Brisbane youngsters. Of the older material, Love Is A Heavy Word and set closer Scrape It are strong, but their other familiar songs are a little loose, and when the boys fail to last their 45 minute playing time, it’s clear that they’re still warming up after their break.

Trail Of Dead take the stage to the sound of Source Tags and Codes instrumental opener Invocation, and play through to new track Giant’s Causeway, with the multiple guitar parts swirling and billowing together. Far Pavilions, It Was There That I Saw You and the magnificently epic Isis Unveiled offer the perfect introduction to the set, thrashing the intensity to near manic levels – on stage, that is. The crowd, in what becomes the standard for the night, is barely moving, preferring to just nod heads in time. Trail Of Dead are doing their best to ramp up the energy, especially frontment Conrad Keely and Jason Reece.

I must confess, the instrument fanboy in me got very excited to see two drumkits on stage, but for most of tonight’s set, there’s not a lot of interplay between the two, mostly just repeating patterns (it must be said though that main drummer Aaron Ford wails the skins like a masterful crazy person, creating an avalanche of beats) . It’s a good night for Codes fans, with Homage, Relative Ways and Another Morning Stoner all making solid appearances, although there’s not as much instrument and position swapping as I remember from their last set at Livid ‘04. But it’s Worlds Apart numbers that take the cake – Caterwaul sees the singer wade into the crowd for the finale, while Would You Smile Again For Me? is the highlight of the night, all smashing drums and thrashing guitars, and the crowd even gets a chance to sing along. They close out their main set with a 10 minute opus, unfortunately little of which I recognised, although Totally Natural was one of the songs, suggesting that Trail Of Dead were visiting their roots with a set of songs from Madonna.

At this stage, I was prepared to declare this the gig of the year, and was expecting the encore to be the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, Trail Of Dead choose to sway heavily to the art-school side of their art-school rock, closing with overly pretentious versions of another song from the new album, and A Perfect Teenhood. For some reason, someone chooses to throw a shoe at Keely’s back, and then gets the bird from the drummer, and the roadie comes out and looks ready to punch on, although Keely seems disinterested in the whole event. Tonight’s show, after a long five year wait, promised so much, and although it mostly delivered, a few poor decisions, and a lack of energy from the crowd kept it from being the sublime night it could have been. Still, Trail Of Dead put on a show that put most bands to shame, and shouldn’t be missed for love or money.