SATURDAY SONG TO GET STONED [AND SMELL THE FUTURE] TO: TRANS AM — “CARBOFORCE”
Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 3:25pm by Kip Wingerschmidt
Once upon a time, I couldn’t get enough of this Thrill Jockey band’s futuristic rock sound — from their stellar early albums to a couple very interesting collaborations with The Fucking Champs to tours with MetalSucks faves The Bronx and muthafuckin TOOL, Trans Am most definitely used to be the shit.
Alas, those daze are long gone(instein); compared to the band’s excellent, unique, and continually reinventive first six releases (an impressive and prolific run for anyone), the next Trans Am album, Liberation, felt rather lukewarm and stilted — the underlying focus of said record is a political attack on our nation’s dumbest
prezzaschmuck to date, a choice which noticeably detracted from TA’s ever-evolving musically creative voice.
The band released another full-length entitled Sex Change in 2007, which was somewhat of a return to form, but clearly the heyday of this exciting robotic-rock unit has passed.
Sniffles.
TRANS AM — “Carboforce”, from Surrender to the Night (1997)
-KW
Holy shit, I guess I’m the only other one who listens to Trans Am. I heard Cocaine Computer a year or so ago and I was hooked. Thanks for putting into words how I felt about the Liberation and Sex Change albums. I feel exactly the same way.
I also concurr;
The first 3 Trans Am albums are seriously good.
-Trans Am
-Surrender To The Night
-The Surveillance
The Drummer is totally under-rated and fucken rips in a style-sense. But after those albums, they shit the bed.
My personal faves for ’self-medication’ that are in a similar musical vein:
-Shellac/ At Action Park
-Fiftywatthead/ Rock n Roll Killer
-Big Business/Head For The Shallow
Though as I type Asesino is punishing the cat…
I forgot to mention those early TA albums have the best farty Pre through vintage Ampeg V4B bass sound I’ve ever heard.
I second what Drumb said bout the first three TA albums — fucking fierce and totally original with sick sounds throughout (and The Surveillance has hardcore undertones, to boot), but also their next album Red Line has a solid handful of synth rock gems a la dark 80s that the indie scenesters don’t have the balls to rock to but totally should…it’s hip vs. hep all over again
Don’t get me wrong; I have ALL their shit. They are among my most favorite bands.
In fact if you remove the fat/filler(crap) songs, after the aforementioned 3 albums, the good stuff from the next 4 albums will fit on one CD.
That’s just plain sad, as they are an awesome band and I’m stoked on what the new album holds in store(?)…
STTN is bad-ass, for real. But my faves are tied up between ‘Future World’ and ‘Sex Change’. They’ve got a long way to go before I’ll write ‘em off.
Bah! “Sex Change” is absolutely fantastic. It’s a more subtle evolution, but its rewards pay and pay . . .
ok,ok,ok… mebbe some of this band’s other stuff rocks. But this tune licks large, flaming, hairy, odd-sized donkey balls. Sad, actually.