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: Pumpkin seeds seem like a nice road-snack diversion from potato chips and nuts. But problems begin when you eat more than three seeds in 10 minutes and your tongue begins burning from the ridiculous amount of salt forced into that package. Once you’ve recovered enough to look at the nutritional information, you find the next problem: Manufacturers conceal the insane sodium level by only including the amount within a pumpkin-seed kernel. If you follow the asterisk, you find out that by eating the entire package of seeds (does anyone shuck the pumpkin-seed husks with their fingers?), you will get a week’s worth of sodium. But the question remains: Why?
Video after the jump.
