Albums by this artist

You Can Always Get What You Want (2000)

Futureworld (1999)

Who Do We Think You Are? (1999)

The Surveillance (1998)

Trans Am

Futureworld

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Trans Am Futureworld Thrill Jockey, 1999 RiYL: Kraftwerk, Can, Metallica

Futureworld, the fourth album in as many years by Maryland trio Trans Am, finds the group erecting a musical response to the world's heightened pre-millenial tension. Although the group's previous three records ran the gamut from ZZ Top-style riffage to Krautrock-ian keyboard folly (sometimes in the same song), Futureworld hosts the first visits from vocals and guest musicians and seems generally preoccupied with vintage, pre-punk exercises a la Kraftwerk and Can.

"1999" kicks things off with a short sax solo (!) from Julian Thomson before getting down to business on "Television Eyes," a speedy drum and bass ditty narrated by a robotic voice. So far, so good. All of the band's most appealing elements are present: the motoric riffing, the retro synth melody or the precise drumwork.

The title track is better, a spastic, major-key romp that jolts the listener back to the alienation of Krautrock circa 1975. The processed voice is strangely comforting, despite jaded observations like "driving alone in my future car / driving fast and going far / radio, telephone / future car, all alone." The droning second-half of the song is very cool, but this is a gloomy state of affairs, indeed. If this is Trans Am's prediction for our future world, unplug my computer and pass me some soma.

The wacky voice is amusing at first, especially when it utters Pimpbot-style come-hithers like "come back to my house, baby" at the beginning of "Am Rhein." But its presence over the course of the whole album (in various states of computer-enhanced disguise) gradually wears thin. In general, the songs tend to become frustratinglly retro (the bland, synth-y "Runners Standing Still" and "Futureworld II," the abstract blip/bleep-fest into which it segues), needlessly repetitive ("City In Flames," complete with the sound of crackling fire) or just silly (the "Revenge Of The Nerds" homage "Cocaine Computer"). They say variety is the spice, but one's left searching for some deeper meaning. Acknowledging that happiness is never so far out of reach, slow-building album closer "Sad And Young" lets the sun of a new century shine through the gloom, picking up where the prog ode "Motr" left off on 1997's Surrender To The Night.

It seems unfair to question Trans Am's sincerity at this point, since the band can rock the house about as well as any outfit currently active in the American underground scene. And although there is definitely some worthwhile material on Futureworld, Trans Am has yet to craft music, or a concept, that holds together over the course of an entire CD.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"