Trans Am – Thing

Apparently Trans Am were originally commissioned to do the soundtrack for a Hollywood sci-fi film, but the project fell apart and the band forged on with their own album. This story may, of course, be bollocks as Trans Am are a band who aren’t strangers to taking the piss.
Nevertheless the album is suffused with a sci-fi feel and much of it could easily fit over some intergalactic wide-screen chicanery. From the song titles Black Matter, Naked Singularity and Space Dock it is clear where the obsession of the album lies.

Apparently Trans Am were originally commissioned to do the soundtrack for a Hollywood sci-fi film, but the project fell apart and the band forged on with their own album. This story may, of course, be bollocks as Trans Am are a band who aren’t strangers to taking the piss.
Nevertheless the album is suffused with a sci-fi feel and much of it could easily fit over some intergalactic wide-screen chicanery. From the song titles Black Matter, Naked Singularity and Space Dock it is clear where the obsession of the album lies.
A lot of music reviewers lazily throw in the phrase ‘cinematic’ to describe anything vaguely expansive in sound (I fear that I may occasionally fall foul of this bad habit myself). For once this is an album where such vocabulary may not be entirely wide of the mark. It isn’t just that the best bits on the album feel like they have the relevant scope to cope with such a tag, but that they do feel like they could sit comfortably within a movie.
Despite the thematic cohesiveness, the album is somewhat eclectic. Whilst tracks like the throbbing Black Matter or the maelstrom of Heaven’s Gate fit into what reviewers even lazier than those who rely on the word ‘cinematic’ could pigeon-hole as ‘post rock’. Beside these however lies the disco-funk of Arcadia and the restrained electro grace of closer Space Dock

Somehow they manage to pull off the gear changes pretty smoothly and the space-ship is kept on something like an even keel (although I don’t think space-craft are generally equipped with keels). This is in no small part to the technical ability of the trio. This is most notably demonstrated on the aforementioned Heaven’s Gate. For all the ferocity of the playing (especially the drumming) the track never feels like it is lurching out of control. Indeed the whole album retains this sense of control, of an over-arching sense of mood story. It would have worked as a soundtrack, I’m sure. And it’s nice to think that there are at least a couple of moments which might make some over-weight Mid-western American choke on their super-sized popcorn.