These are tumultuous times, and rock music knows it. In light of America's recent turmoil, eminent voices in the genre are using their influence to ignite a protest movement-- though maybe not the kind you were expecting: The new rock dissent is proudly apolitic, concerned more with its fashion statements and coolly apathetic poses than changing the system. In short, it ain't your dad's counter-culture.
While we sit around waiting for the dancepunk answer to Hair, Trans Am have gathered the chutzpah to call out the indie messiahs on their shameful disinterest. Liberation is the latest contribution to a burgeoning, as-yet undeclared genre of instrumental rock with a political message. A scant handful of bands have made albums of this nature over the past few years, but their putative "protests" are often as ambiguous as a Bush State of the Union Address. In lieu of lyrics, Godspeed You! Black Emperor drew a schematic diagram for their 2002 LP, Yanqui U.X.O., detailing the intricate web of relations between the recording industry's major labels and a nuclear holocaust's worth of weapons manufacturers. The results were, at best, lukewarm.
Indeed, creating an impacting political album without lyrics seems about as predestined to fail as an Israeli-Palenstinian peace negotiation. As songwriters like Phil Ochs and Woody Guthrie established long ago, it takes the full brunt of articulate, meaningful lyrics to rile up any sort of populace, and that a movement is nothing without people behind it. That, of course, hasn't deterred Trans Am, who go for the jugular on seventh album, Liberation.
Song titles like "Uninvited Guest", "Divine Invasion", "Spike in Chatter", and "Total Information Awareness" seek to parody the Bush rhetoric of terror. And if names like "Idea Machine" don't tip you off to the anti-war message, there are the vocoded voice samples of the president on "Uninvited Guest", which make it abundantly clear: "Our commitment to weapons of mass destruction is America's tradition," "The Iraqi people love their oppressors," etc. This cut-up technique, of course, is awfully tired: bedroom novelty artists have been doing it virtually since Bush took office. The difference is, Trans Am aren't laughing, and juxtaposed against their demonic synths, the speech is awfully disturbing. Unfortunately, "disturbing" is hardly the mark of a successful protest album. Any music that has ever contributed to political upheaval has done so by way of emotional appeal. In that sense, Liberation is closer in attitude to propaganda than an impassioned plea for humanity: It fails to invoke the necessary compassion that might compel us to act.
Politics aside, Liberation does rock pretty fierce. Like the country it recriminates, the album sounds intentionally monolithic. Dank, unfeeling synthesizers and bombastic drum sounds conjure harsh futurism, while songs like "Idea Machine" and "Total Information Awareness" make up for their didacticism by just plain shredding. Unlike other instrumental soapboxers, Trans Am shun a barren, apocalyptic sound in favor of something tighter and more claustrophobic, and the result is more effective for it. Rather than creating a sense of imminent destruction and finality, Liberation ensnares you in an enduring hell, its unmistakable new-wave sheen invoking the political ghosts of the Reagan era and recalling the 20th century's legacy of totalitarian prophesy.
Sadly, the album offers few musical thrills beyond that, and the disappointment is doubled once one considers the record's intended impact. Trans Am's intentions, like all the best ones, are noble and unrealistic. And while it's nice to see them getting serious for a change, Liberation will only serve to bolster the argument of those who contend that it's impossible to make effective political music without lyrics, and help others to appreciate the work of the past's truer crusaders.
