The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features
2009-year-end-review-see-all

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008

Thrill Jockey
By MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY  |  November 24, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars

0911_transam_main

Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.

The Kraftwerk-inspired “Outmoder” contrasts nervy, krautrock guitar with a deep, grooving bass line to produce a surprisingly rhythmic, albeit spastic, crowd pleaser. It’s a prime example of the group’s skill at creating coherent, startling juxtapositions out of their many diverse influences. A Styxian vocoder marks selections from the band’s 1999 album Futureworld that include the title track and “Television Eyes.”

These numbers are soaked in a disorienting futurist nostalgia that epitomizes Trans Am’s ironic humor and their ability to transform leaden clichés into gold. Yet the less affected the music is, the less compelling it becomes. It’s the artifice and the intertextuality that make the band so entertaining; when the veil drops even a little bit, as with the crisp vocals of the sludgy “Slow Response,” much of the fun is dissipated.

Related: The Big Hurt: Faces refaced, Wale | Attention Deficit, Various Artists | Panama! 3, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Entertainment, Music,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

[ 01/02 ]   Stereogrove  @ Toad
[ 01/02 ]   "Roxy Red"  @ Roxy
[ 01/02 ]   "Storm"  @ Rise
[ 01/02 ]   DJ Special K  @ Tommy Doyle's @ Harvard
[ 01/02 ]   Josh Lederman & the Czars  @ Plough & Stars
ARTICLES BY MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   TRANS AM | WHAT DAY IS IT TONIGHT? TRANS AM LIVE, 1993 - 2008  |  November 24, 2009
    Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
  •   THE BLACK HEART PROCESSION | SIX  |  October 06, 2009
    Formed in sunny San Diego, the Black Heart Procession write the kind of gloomy, downcast dirges you'd expect from less hospitable climates.
  •   FOOL'S GOLD | FOOL'S GOLD  |  September 22, 2009
    A big band with a big sound, Los Angeles-based Fool’s Gold come off as self-consciously cosmopolitan.  
  •   REVIEW: CASTANETS | TEXAS ROSE, THE THAW AND THE BEASTS  |  September 15, 2009
    Although based in a rustic, country-western sound, Ray Raposa's Castanets are irreverent, using familiar elements like pedal-steel guitars and gospel choruses in defiant ways.
  •   REVIEW: WILD BEASTS | TWO DANCERS  |  September 09, 2009
    It would be easy to overuse singer Hayden Thorpe's ebullient falsetto and dilute its campy majesty. Wild Beasts, a dreamy English quartet with a penchant for licentious lyrics and showy flourishes, know better.

 See all articles by: MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group