...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Dead Twins

It's been six years since Austin's Trail of Dead released its seminal Source Tags & Codes record, a masterpiece of a disc that fully launched the band into the national spotlight—and perhaps, along with the band's reputation for putting on a chaotic live performance, set the bar too high for any of its follow-ups. It's not that the band's two releases since haven't been good—actually, they're quite enjoyable—but they haven't even come close to the scope of Source Tags & Codes. Still the band keeps trying (a new disc is slated for some point in '09), and we keep waiting with bated breath, knowing what Trail of Dead is capable of when focused.

Austin's When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, which returns to Dallas for the second time in as many months, and Dallas' own Dead Twins, which gets to share far too many impressive bills, open.