After 24 years and 10 albums, we’re still trying to figure out Trans Am. A statement of misguided complication or exaggeration? Maybe. But the trio—guitarist Phil Manley, bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Nathan Means, drummer Sebastian Thomson—hasn’t exactly made comprehension easy considering its non-linear progression, lack of canned press statements and refusal to submit to expectation. Trans Am’s throw-at-a-dartboard-and-see-what-sticks approach notwithstanding, the band finds itself with a 10th album in its laps. Volume X (Thrill Jockey) leans toward the streamlined sensibility of 2007’s Sex Change, snidely and playfully existing somewhere between krautrock, post-rock, electro-rock, punk rock and other prefix-rock. Trans Am will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
Means: Let’s talk about Trans Am. Lot’s of things have been written about this band over the years. “Like Michelangelo freestyling.” “Beaking open new sonic terrain on every album.” “Garish and failed attempt to revisit ’80s pop.” “Not esoteric enough.” “Thank you for your submission.” That sort of thing. But all of it is simply made up by people writing about music. That’s the problem. Reviewers really have two options. One is to compare the music to previous bands’ music. This is deserved by most bands and helpful in a picking-the-best-appliance-kind-of-way, but is sort of boring for everyone involved. Two is attempting to effectively communicate a new sound and aesthetic to someone that has not heard it before. This is really fun for the reviewer but basically impossible to be successful at. The reviewer who chooses this route probably has about as much chance as successfully recreating the experience of a female orgasm to a male reader (i.e., none). So the best option is to completely give up on reviewing the music and write something funny. Then you can conclude with “six out of 10” or something useful like that.
