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Only the future knows whether Boston's Trabants made a commercially savvy choice by disseminating a record of scorching surf rock during one of the snowiest winters in memory. Will attendees at the release show later this month (January 28 at Rosebud, natch) buy music that reminds them what it's like when it doesn't totally suck outside? For that matter, how will those accustomed to the roller-coaster punk of local power trio Ketman react to Trabants' instrumental retrophilia? Although a change in style and method required a rebrand from Eric Penna - assisted by his regular Ketman running buddies and a few others adding auxiliary spice- it seems the same underlying philosophy applies to both bands. Ketman pluck a concept out of the æther of their collective unconsciousness and turn it into a punk song. Trabants cull a mood from something like a spaghetti western or a Frankie-and-Annette flick, establish a riff to serve as its appropriate avatar, and blow it up with solo freakouts and slow-burning crescendos. More often than not, the results echo songs everybody remembers from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack by otherwise obscure cats like the Lively Ones and Dick Dale. I suspect that's pretty much the idea.
