Trabants | Highwire Surfing

Lifted and Gifted (2011)
By BARRY THOMPSON  |  January 19, 2011
3.0 3.0 Stars

 Trabant

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.

Related: Out: Boston loses a musical ace, The scene is now, Hooray for students, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Boston, Eric Penna, KETMAN,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY BARRY THOMPSON
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS | WELCOME OBLIVION  |  March 13, 2013
    Whereas the monsters and ghosts of NIN songs can scream in your face and rip you to bits with their fangs, Welcome Oblivion tracks like techno-folk haunter "Ice Age" and the doom-pop jaunt "How Long?" make uncredited cameo appearances in your nightmares until you go insane and eat your own hands.
  •   JOHNNY MARR | THE MESSENGER  |  February 25, 2013
    Going solo is rarely a good decision. For every exception to the rule of who flourishes after unburdening themselves of the half-talents that have been holding them back — Justin Timberlake, for one — there are dozens of embarrassing Dee Dee Ramone rap albums that exist because Joey and Johnny Ramone weren't around to kibosh a terrible idea.
  •   WHAT'S F'N NEXT? BUKE AND GASE  |  January 29, 2013
    Almost every person I've told about Buke and Gase assumes that they'll hate this band, which isn't their fault.
  •   BLEEDING RAINBOW | YEAH RIGHT  |  January 23, 2013
    The only defect of the sort-of-but-not-really debut from Bleeding Rainbow (no longer called Reading Rainbow, possibly due to litigious ire festering under LeVar Burton's genial television persona) is that the Philly foursome merely hop off the launching point forged by Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and a handful of others from the oft-exalted grunge era.
  •   10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE I STARTED PLAYING IN BANDS IN BOSTON  |  January 25, 2013
    We hear you just moved to "the Bean", and you're thinking about starting a real life rock-'n-roll band! Here's a bunch of bullshit you should know about.

 See all articles by: BARRY THOMPSON