Source Tags & Codes is the third album by American rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and the first distributed by a major record label. It was released on February 26, 2002 to wide critical acclaim. The album is often cited as the band's finest work.
Music videos were produced for "Another Morning Stoner" and "Relative Ways", which saw airplay on MTV2.
Recording and production
After releasing two albums on indie record imprints, Trail of Dead signed a multi-release deal with Interscope Records and began recording a follow-up to 1999's Madonna with the same producer, Mike McCarthy. Source Tags & Codes was recorded in Cotati, California and mixed in Nashville, Tennessee on a budget of 150,000 dollars.
| rev1 = AllMusic
| rev1Score =
| rev2 = Blender
| rev2score =
| rev3 = Chicago Sun-Times
| rev3Score =
| rev4 = Entertainment Weekly
| rev4Score = A−
| rev5 = The Guardian
| rev5Score =
| rev6 = Los Angeles Times
| rev6Score =
| rev7 = NME
| rev7Score = 8/10
| rev8 = Pitchfork
| rev8Score = 10/10
| rev9 = Rolling Stone
| rev9Score =
| rev10 = Uncut
| rev10Score =
Source Tags & Codes was met with critical acclaim, receiving a score of 85 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". while Billboards Annie Zaleski stated that "what makes Source Tags & Codes such an amazing album is how the band teeters on the edge of this implosion but always yanks its songs back from collapse at the very last second." Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote that the band "plays imaginative alt-rock with intense passion, and Source Tags & Codes lets the pressure build exquisitely." Noting its "angular, Sonic Youth-style guitar and earnest anger", Blenders Michael Leonard credited the album for being "more engaging than many of [the band's] post-rock peers",
Hobey Echlin of The Village Voice wrote that Source Tags & Codes "captures the fuzzy-math sound from too many gray-area indie bands—and it rocks hard where geezers like Mercury Rev just drift away." Mojo described the album as "not a crossover record, but invigorating." Among average reviews, Q felt that the band "has reached a point where the need for convention outweighs the joy of using guitars as weapons." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau awarded the album a "dud" rating, indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought." While noting that "there's a fantastic EP in here somewhere", Maddy Costa of The Guardian nonetheless felt that the album "is ablaze with emotion – it roars and pulses and oozes angst – but it never inspires".
By 2005, Source Tags & Codes sales had surpassed 100,000 units.
Legacy
In 2009, Source Tags & Codes was placed at number 100 in Pitchforks list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.
In a 2011 article, the BBC's Mike Driver calls it "one of the very finest rock albums of recent history," and "a masterpiece of its time, Source Tags & Codes really does deserve to be held in as high regard as In Rainbows or Funeral, or any other critical triumph of recent history."
Track listing
;Notes
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Chart (2002)
! Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.
;...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
- Conrad Keely – lead vocals (on "It Was There That I Saw You", "Another Morning Stoner", "How Near How Far", "Relative Ways", "Source Tags & Codes" and "Blood Rites"), guitar, drums (on "Homage", "Heart in the Hand of the Matter", and "Days of Being Wild") string arrangements, art direction, artwork
- Jason Reece – lead vocals (on "Homage", "Heart in the Hand of the Matter" and "Days of Being Wild"), drums, artwork
- Neil Busch – lead vocals (on "Baudelaire" and "Monsoon"), bass
- Kevin Allen - guitar
;Additional personnel
- David Angel – violin
- David Bryant – engineering
- John Catchings – cello
- Sharon Corbitt – management
- Gene Cornelilus – engineering
- Larry Cragg – guitar and amplifier rental
- Eric Darken – additional percussion, bells, timpani
- David Davidson – violin
- Jason D'Ottavio – management
- Connie Ellisore – violin
- Carl Gorodetsky – violin
- Traci Goudie – art direction, layout
- David Grissom – guitar and amplifier rental
- Jim Hoke – tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, bass harmonica
- Anthony Lamarchina – cello
- Roger Lian – editing
- Jim Lightman – engineering
- Mike McCarthy – engineering, production
- James Olsen – artwork, backing vocals
- Tetsuya Otani – management, voice translation
- John Painter – string arrangements, flugelhorn, trumpet
- Jennifer Quinn – management
- Cheryle Rennick – recording
- Mooka Rennick – recording
- Leslie Richter – engineering
- Pam Sixfin – violin
- Jim Vollentine – engineering
- Howie Weinberg – mastering
- Kristen Wilkinson – viola
- King Williams – shortwave radio rental