Rating: NN
The epic battle scene depicted on the sleeve of Worlds Apart is actually a good indication of the grand-scale chaos that the Trail of Dead whip up on their fourth album. It all started going wrong when the thinking person’s punks got too precious about their instruments and stopped busting up the stage for an encore, and it’s been a downhill prog rock slide ever since. Here, they let loose their pent-up classical pretensions. While they know it’s important to have some tympani, strings, horns and bellowing singers, they clearly haven’t yet learned the rudiments of arranging to use the added instrumental fire power to their advantage. It’s just more screaming bluster you don’t need.
