Trans Am "California Hotel (Thrill Jockey)"
I try to come up with original content for these blurbs, I really do. Sure, I check out the official press for the albums, but besides listening to them that’s all the research I do. Yet sometimes that pesky official press speaks to me on such a visceral level that I can’t help but quote it directly. And located in the press for Trans Am’s new album California Hotel (Thrill Jockey) hits so many of my specific likes that I just can’t help it. “On California Hotel, Trans Am borrowed ideas from My Bloody Valentine, John Carpenter, DAF, Led Zeppelin, Air, Sade and David Gilmore, among others. The result is an incredibly rich range of sounds that retain a pulsating energy.” I know for a fact that I have used every one of those bands as “sound alikes” in blurbs during my tenure. It’s a greatest hits of “sound alikes” in fact. I love this album. You love this album. Stop reading my plagiarism and start listening to the driving chaos of “Alles Verboten.”