Trans Am walks the same line between substance and style that its namesake car model did in its heyday. Often considered the leading light of the ’90s post-rock scene, the Maryland-based trio switches between big, loud rawk riffing and spacey, experimental ambience, sometimes within the same song. Trans Am gleans imagery and sounds from the synth- and vocoder-heavy music of decades past, but also informs its songs with a detached, millennial indie attitude. The group shifts gears from album to album, and this intellectual restlessness continues with the atmospheric, trippy Thing (Thrill Jockey). The LP should appeal both to new-school stoner-metal fans and the hippie oldheads at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, where Trans Am will be playing a free show on August 18. Nathan Means will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with the band.
Means: Excellent question! This phenomenon puzzled experts for centuries, leading to the development of a theory called “Evolutionary Parking.” Despite their global success, multi-leaf trees are actually extremely inefficient. In a truly intelligent evolutionary system, they would be genetic relics, replaced by mono trees several years ago. Instead, you virtually never see the much better designed mono tree. Essentially, Evolutionary Parking explains that multi-leaf trees still dominate because … they were here first. Every time a mono tree tries to establish itself, the multi-leaf trees bury it in a deluge of leaves and send roots out specifically to strangle the young sapling. Evolutionary Parking is also a cutting-edge example of “Stupid Design,” a larger macro-theory that suggests our world is indeed organized by a sentient being, but that (s)he is sort of feeble-minded and forgetful.
Video after the jump.
