The Listomania I make the lists, you shoot them down. Quid Pro Quo.

86. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – Another Morning Stoner

Hey look. It's another band that's faded away into relative obscurity after an overwhelming burst of critical acclaim and surprising popularity in the early Aughts. They don't have a record label any more and they tried to hype their most recent independent release by putting videos of the recording process on Youtube, but in 2002, after they dropped their major-label debut Source Tags and Codes, this band looked like it was making moves. The album even captured that mythical beast of the hipster-music world, the elusive and downright controversial 10.0 rating from Pitchfork. Seriously, I'm pretty sure PFork would give Sgt. Pepper's an 8.7 or some shit. But when the band first hit, everyone was ready to jump on the epic and orchestral indie bandwagon, and "Another Morning Stoner" was the flagship song on what has become an enduring, if unprophetic testament to the band's creative peak.

They looked like a Fueled By Ramen shit-punk act, and they used traditional rock n' roll stepping stones, but "Another Morning Stoner" is a prime example of Trail of Dead taking something old, scratching the fuck out of it, letting it rust and peel and scar, and then rebuilding it into their own, brand new tower of heavy rock power. With chiming guitars, ringing cymbals and the rush of a band that is so sonically in tune that they played in a gnarly, crushing trance, this song builds in sweeping tones to a screaming climax that sounds more Nirvana than anything "indie" could ever come up with (they do have a song named "Baudelaire" though. I'm not sure Cobain was so well-versed in French art allusions.) Now, they play live with something like 4 drummers, and there are tons of people on stage, and the whole act has become this slugging goliath that trudges through the sludge of songs with similar heft, but slowly fading muscle and tonal agility. But back in 2002, before the weight of a 10.0 and a video on MTV2 started crushing in, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead made weighty, dense, pushing ROCK music that at once enlivened and enlightened a new generation of tattooed and tongue-ringed indie kids looking for something just a little bit, well, heavier.