Song of the Day "Fields of Coal" -- ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

This song is a bit trickier to deliver to you. Because of the scope of the artist, there just isn't a music video for me to embed. I got it figured out, though, and here is an embeded audio from the website Grooveshark (worth looking at as an alternative to Pandora, by the way) of "Fields of Coal", a song that came up on my iTunes while it was on shuffle and made me stop doing homework and chatting on Facebook for a full 2 and a half minutes as I listened, shocked that a song this good had been sitting in my music library for upwards of a month without me listening to it. I'm really not sure when or why I downloaded this album, probably a carryover from some late night downloading binge, but the fact that I did is quite a happy accident.

You probably have not heard of ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead unless you are fortunate enough to be from Austin, as I am, but that doesn't mean these indie art rockers, who so impressed Pitchfork with their third album, Source Tags and Codes, that they earned a rare 10/10, a score usually reserved for Radiohead albums, aren't well worth your time. Their last album, The Century of Self, which is where you will find "Fields of Gold", most certainly is.

Now, I can't speak for their previous five (yes, five) full-length albums. Reading reviews of this one that kept referencing past efforts with often less-than-positive terms makes me wonder a little bit. But Century of Self is definitely a worthwhile venture. "Bells of Creation" and "Fields of Coal" alone prove it. Give it a good listen, if you have time, and check out one of their shows if you get a chance (and live in Austin).

I always tried to do good but I was just a bad kid