Hello, friends! I'm in Sacramento, California, for a wedding. I'm typing this from my aunt and uncle's house. I love this place. My dad has the most awesome family ever.

Further into the "My grandma is never going to die" chronicles, she's 94 and broke her hip. They did surgery and then asked her how she felt, rating her pain on a scale from 1 to 10. She said "Oh, nothing really. 0. Maybe 1." She doesn't want painkillers or anything. What a trooper. I'll be seeing her later tonight.

I'm listening to the new Trail O' Dead (heh) as it's the only thing I moved to my mp3 player for this trip. I really want to give it a second chance, and another, and another. TOD, I WANT TO LOVE YOU. Let us start, then.

Track 1: Holy crap. This is the best introduction they've done. Where the instrumental for Source Tags was the calm before the storm, this is the angry swelling of the storm after the lull is over and it's here to ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE. As if anyone would make a song out of those words.

Track 2: Pow, right out of the gate, there's far more aggression in this than the joyful, pummling wall of noise of "It was then that I saw you". While that song will always, I think, be in my TOD top 3, this track, at the start, gives it a run for the money.

Then it peters off before the vocals come in. Then, for about 5 agonizing minutes, the only music is a kick drum, pounding, while Conrad sings. It's uninspiring and insipid. Speaking of good ol' Conrad, don't expect any screaming vocals like from Source Tag's awesome "Monsoon" or the like. It's just Conrad. Not the best. Moving on.

Track 3: With a wild perk of optimism, this song jerks into a sloppy (in a good way) drum beat and a pretty upbeat song. What's odd is that this seems to be rather poppy for TOD. It's an attack on MTV, somewhat. What? Nice lyrics: "Look at those cunts on MTV / with cars and cribs and rings and shit / is that what being a celebrity means". OK, TOD. I can understand that. Doesn't this seem like an attack that's out of their sphere, though? Every band can rail against the big, bad Man. I would just expect TOD to do it angrily instead of TRL-ish. Maybe it's a clever self-parody. Who knows. Who cares. I want my old TOD back.

Track 4: Woah, Beatles. Who let them onto this CD? Piano and wilted vocals sort of bend and croon, almost touching on an Oasis-like soft spot (although you can't avoid the Beatles comparison then, by proxy).

Track 5: Ah, yes. In an army drum-line like march, TOD bring back the guitars and drums and what would most likely be a blistering live song. It's ones like these that have given me faith in going to see them live on Oct. 1st, even though a majority of this album is, to steal from the Brits, tripe. This is a really solid song, though. I'd love harder vocals on this one, though.

Track 6: Hurray! This one is called "Caterwaul" and it has tons of roots in their last album. It still hangs onto the somewhat poppy sound of this album, but they've still got a sort of late Primal-Scream sway to this one. It's very good. But get ready, since TOD is going to shed all of this in a second. For the moment, get ready for an awesome bridge that extends a while. You know what else is there? Backup female vocals. What? Instead of "female" I accidentally typed "felame". Do the math, but this song is still awesome.

Track 7: Slow it down, boys! In what looks to be the 3rd intro guitar riff that goes in 3-time, this song is good. But it just sits there, like an extra roll at dinner.

Track 8: In what looks to be the anthem of this album, this sounds like a heavy Oasis (the vocals even sound very, very tailored to Liam. Just give it a listen). This is a really good song as long as you can forget that Source Tags ever happened. I suppose that applies to this entire album.

Track 9: Instrumental. It's good.

Track 10: In another very un-TOD move, more crooning women and a slower song.

Track 11: Hey, everybody! Let's play like U2! Look, it's never a bad thing. But the opening riff sounds like the Edge on loan. Again, that's not a terrible thing. The songs starts great, but then it just lurches to a staggered piano/acoustic guitar riff. It's ugly. Remember that pretty rad guitar riff from the start of the song? You'll never see it again. Sorry. I'm close to hating this song.

Track 12: Aww, look, it's TOD-lite. Just a gentle album closer. It's sort of forgettable. Hey, ready for this shit?! It's a HIDDEN TRACK AFTER THIS! Woah! Holy crap! How is it?! It's pretty good. Violin, etc. Wait, more crooning women. What is this? It's the same chorus that was in "Caterwaul". It's just the sample taken out of the song and looped. OK. This sample sounded sweet in Caterwaul but it's just filler here.

So that's the album, although maybe most of you didn't read it because you wanted to read about yourself in this. Fine. Here.

LauraBarr - Please write me a REAL EMAIL. You have a job and a new place! I want to know all about it!

Melati - I lost your email address and I've called your home twice, but no one picks up. heh. Since your phone was lost, I've left a message or two. Is it still the same number? Just write me an email. Even one with just one word. I'll write back.

Annie - Smooootch. Miss you! I can't wait to get home. And winter is coming, so I hope you know what that means - spooning. Lots of it. I hope you're doing excellent, m'dear.

Glenn - Best of luck in whatever you decide to do - I hope you're still there when I get back! In any case, we'll be in touch. Did you ever listen to the CD I gave you?

Erin - Yes, yes, here you are. Don't worry about your man. Things have a way of working out, even if they take a while. I look forward to opening with you again! It's been too long.

Jayne Chivers - You are a terrible person and I still can't believe how you acted. Come on. I'm really trying to shake the grudge but I've never been so offended.

Italy - 'sup, Italy? How have you been?

Lucca - NO. DOWN. NO. NO. NO. DOWN. DOWN. DOWN. STOP THAT. NO. DON'T EAT THAT. NO. NO. DOWN. DOWN. DOWN. NO. GOOD BOY.

I hope you're doing well. I love you, lil' buddy, even though you'll never read this, or, to my knowledge, ever read anything, since you're a dog.

Shannon - Call me or something.

Brian - I AM STILL UPSET AT YOU, YOU TOOL. But you know that I love you, too.

Justin - I don't love you. I hope all the dogs in Washington Park attack you at ONCE.

IN YOUR SLEEP.

No, wait, no, you wake up right before it happens so you get ALL THE PAIN YOU DESERVE.

ALL OF IT.

xoxo,
Jared