Crossing Austin's city limits

If 2002's "Source Tags and Codes" made ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead reason No. 3,016,743 to love Austin, Texas, then the trio's Tuesday release of "Worlds Apart" is 3,016,743 A.

While "Worlds Apart" retains enough of the style for which the band won favor with "Source Tags and Codes," especially in the remarkable "Will You Smile Again?," it is far and away a more accessible record. The title track is a pop gem despite a few lyrical missteps and the fact that any phrase bearing the words "Jesus Christ" and the F-bomber is not going to wind up on Top 40 rotations. Then again, this is Interscope Records, the label that thought Marilyn Manson was Chuck Dickens's kid.

In fact, those missteps are perhaps the only major flaw in the album. Trail of Dead shines when they maintain a sense of ambiguity, and the hook in that same track is a great example, as vocalist Conrad Keely sneers, "How we've laughed as they shoveled the ashes wrath hath soured/ Blood and death, we will pay back the debt for this candy store of ours."

Aw, how cute.

"Worlds Apart" is so close to perfection that it sounds like the band took every off day since "Source Tags and Codes" was released to prepare its successor. It is, in fact, so brilliant that it calls attention to both the tiniest detail and the most prominent riff at the very same moment.

The record succeeds where most ambitious indie rock offerings fail by containing monstrous hooks that demand to be remembered. "Caterwaul." "And The Rest Will Follow." "Let It Dive." It would not be an error to just list the song titles with a simple, "Yeah, it's all great. No more review, let's go get a sandwich."

That said, "Worlds Apart" is not for those with any attachment to pop culture. Keely rips through America with a vehement hate normally reserved for mass murderers. Some of the aforementioned lyrical content is enough to make the timid shy away, but the music itself is the polar opposite, with the magnetic draw of song-structure legends like The Beatles and Pink Floyd, both of whom are recalled nearly flawlessly in tracks ten and eleven, album highlights "All White" and "The Best."

Standout track: "Will You Smile Again?"