Trans Am – 'Thing' review
Trans Am return with album umpteen of space-inflected bleepy math-rock, which has plenty of seriously impressive displays of musicianship but also a sense of staleness that perhaps belies the fact that the album took nearly two years to make. When it clicks, though, Thing really comes to life. Heaven’s Gate spends four minutes in mesmerising Spiritualized-esque spacerockfreejazzmetal territory before exiting ecstatically into pounding bass and drums for a triumphant, teutonic final 90 seconds. Equally, Interstellar Drift’s constantly but imperceptibly shifting time signatures are strangely captivating – it’s the freshest-sounding piece on the record.
However, tracks like Arcadia and Apparent Horizon feel reluctantly written and performed, slopping along like the soundtrack to a bad noughties computer game, and there are too many songs of their ilk on Thing for it ever to be anything more than a musical curio.
5/10
