IX (...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead album)

IX is the ninth studio album by the Austin, Texas alternative rock rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, released October 20, 2014, on Superball Music.

Composition
Jason Reece explained in an interview that the band was going for a record consisting of many instrumental tracks. Several instrumentals were written, but ended up writing songs that "had a more personal lyrical bent", departing from the last album's very aggressive and political lyrics. As for the sound, it was inspired by Slave Ambient and Lost in the Dream, both records by The War on Drugs: "This layered Krautrock kind of vibe. We were thinking of Echo And The Bunnymen, Ocean Rain. These dense and bigger sounding albums. We were kind of into some 80’s music, Psychedelic Furs. Which is funny cause we’re not really a band that’s into the new wave sound, I don’t think we’ve ever made an 80’s sounding record. That’s kind of what we were jamming out to, the early 80’s sounds. Going for more of a Peter Gabriel thing, where you don’t use any cymbals, heavy toms and stuff like that were sort of the things we were kind of touching upon."

Critical reception
Reviews for IX were mostly positive upon release, with an Metacritic average of 75/100, indicating generally favorable reviews.

A review in Pitchfork stated, "While the band may have struggled in the past to reconcile their post-hardcore roots with their art-rock ambitions*,* more often than not, 'IX' marks the spot."

In MXDWN, Elliot Greiner wrote, "For a band that started out in post-punk and somehow wandered into the feathery territory of art-rock, 'IX' is a mediocre answer to a career’s worth of solid material. While not terrible, it is a far shot from all right, and an even farther shot from (some of) what they’ve put out in the past."