Pitchfork

Trans Am's most recent record, 2004's Liberation, purported to be politically charged instrumental rock, but Sex Change proves them to be uniters, not dividers. This new album nearly summarizes the band's career thus far, shining light on unmined and forgotten (sometimes for good reason) sounds and genres from the not-too-distant past but forgoing most of their less-advisable indulgences. There's still moments that one could flag as cheesy, but those spots aren't executed with the same tongue-in-cheek humor as on their recent work. It's more like an alternate-universe 1980s, with more technical flair, studied patience, and a modicum of better taste.

You may have heard the rubbery bass notes and ridiculous reverb of "First Words" before, but not with this track's motorik patience, finding some odd middle ground between Kraftwerk and Mannheim Steamroller, with strange vocal manipulations added to the outro. Similarly strange conflations occur in "Obscene Strategies", with "Low Rider" percussion, wet electro-bass, violin presets and stiff-funk guitars contrast with an rude, jagged guitar riff and a spaced-out breakdown. Even the churning guitar chords and the hyperactive drumming of "Conspiracy of the Gods" are balanced out by deep programmed bass hits and Doppler-aping synth squiggles-- and that's before the bongos. There's no such thing as a bad idea on a Trans Am record, but on Sex Change, they're all delivered here in a startling deadpan.

If you're not into that, however, the latter half of the disc brings the throwbacks and the smirks, along with the guitars. This includes the going-nowhere-on-all-cylinders vicious chug of "Shining Path" and the hilarious punch-in on the beginning of "Triangular Pyramid", going from acoustic meandering to a sludge-metal lullaby replete with vocoded crooning. It's an interesting middle ground the band reach here, touching upon many previous bases while not favoring entirely the guitar tomfoolery or the smirking electro-rock. If you were a fan of one extreme, Sex Change may not satisfy you, but if you've tuned out on their recent material-- or as Pitchfork contributor Mark Richardson put it, you "liked them more when you were missing the point"-- this record is a welcoming shift.