Pop Goes Politics - Is the new protest music any good? By Jody Rosen
Nathan's band is making some waves on Slate today!
Trans Am
Liberation, Thrill Jockey
Click here to listen to "Total Information Awareness," here to listen to "Spike in the Chatter," and here to listen to "Uninvited Guest."
War on Terror catchphrases like "Total Information Awareness" and "Spike in the Chatter" sound like song titles in search of creepy music, and Washington, D.C.,-based Trans Am delivers just that on this suitably dystopian soundtrack. But there's only so much a mostly instrumental neo-prog rock band can say. Whether droning "Security … Technology" over power chords in a vocoder robot voice, or layering samples of Arab journalists describing bombing runs on Baghdad atop clattering canned beats, Trans Am's message is the same: That George Bush sure is a scary warmonger. Liberation's most satisfying variation on this banal theme is "Uninvited Guest." The song stitches together bits of Bush's speeches ("Our commitment to weapons of mass destruction is America's tradition," says the president to roaring applause) and plays them over an eerie Afrika Bambaataa-style synthesizer riff.