Austinist CD Reviews: The Locust & Trans Am
Trans Am - Sex Change
Trans Am practice a style of Krautrock, infused with Vietnam-era mood-rock fetishism, that at first glance seems to place them uncomfortably close to the Norwegian retro outfit 120 Days. On closer inspection, however, Trans Am's mostly-instrumental style is far more musically versatile than 120 Days' self-serious posing. Sex Change, while conspicuously lacking the hooks that have made their European counterparts international stars, is light as a feather in comparison to 120 Days' self-serious posing, their sound weirder and more adventurous. Unfortunately, that adventurousness doesn't quite translate into a cohesive style. Between all the busy motorik drumming, soaring-keyboard Eno-isms, slatternly indie 'tude, and occasional spasms of arena guitar brio, figuring out just what kind of band Trans Am want to be proves more difficult than necessary. When it all comes together, as on the striking Tangerine Dream-meets-Smashing Pumpkins instrumental "Shining Path," the results are impressive, but too much of Sex Change feels aimless and inconclusive. The record sounds great, tricked out with throwback production techniques and a deep, dark analog tone, but Sex Change is bound to leave casual listeners furrowing their brows rather than pumping their fists.
Trans Am play Emo's 04/16 with Zombi.
Trans Am website
The Locust - New Erections
In 2003, The Locust released Plague Soundscapes, an album composed of 23 nightmarish, minute-or-less grindcore tunes with mouthy titles like "Anything Jesus Can Do I Can Do Better." At the time, no one could decide whether it was more bizarre that the record was released by Epitaph affiliate label Anti-, home of Tom Waits and Buju Banton, or that it sold 20,000 copies, practically platinum for an experimental noise band. 4 years later, Plague Soundscapes stands as a milestone for innovation in a largely stagnant genre, an impossibly dense, blackly funny affront to both mainstream American culture and the grossly compromised punk scene that has willingly merged with it. Predictably, The Locust thwart any expectations for their follow-up LP by opening New Erections with a 4-minute epic; the band's trademark twittering synths and machinic blastbeats give way to a mounting crescendo and the blistering chant "We'll bury this city in trash!" before disintegrating into an ocean of noise. This is a much angrier Locust than before; the cheeky song titles of the last record have been replaced by the drab-sounding cynicism of "God Wants Us All To Work In Factories" and the explicitly political "The Unwilling...Led By The Unqualified...Doing The Unneccesary...For The Ungrateful." The music itself is centered more around synth drones and piercing guitar squall than packing 15 rhythmic shifts into 49 seconds; the antagonistic instrumental "Scavenger, Invader" may well be the most terrifying 1:15 ever put to tape. Extreme music fans, here is your feel-bad hit of the summer.
The Locust play Emo's 04/26 with Daughters and Cattle Decapitation.
