When I was a boy, I wanted to live in the movie Tron. Hell, I still want to live in Tron. Every object bathed in a blue glow, those suits made from mouse-pad material, killer frisbees and laser sails... Of course, at this point, I realize that technology will never bring my dream to fruition. But at the very least, I can listen to Trans Am's Futureworld and close my eyes.

I nearly wept from nostalgia at the minimal Atari landscape cover of Futureworld. In this age of four million polygons per second, liquid animation, and "Quake II," the simple pixelized Atari grid takes on Zen-like qualities. Trans Am realize that the future is always better in our heads now than when we actually get there. I'd love to think that rock in the future all sounds like Trans Am. I'd also like to teleport and have robot pal. But really, music in the future will still just be some teen named Spunky Glee singing about crushes over Roni Size beats.

Opening with distorted blasts of saxophone and droning frequencies, Futureworld flat out smokes. Drums relentlessly pummel away while blasts of incinerating keyboard melt neck- snapping basslines. Synthesizers drench the caustic crunch with melody and hooks. The echo of an infinite yellow on black matrix chimes throughout. Not since Brainiac has a band better fused crushing riffs with sinister computer effects and a tongue pressed slightly against the cheek. A robotic voice commands, "Come back to my house, baby" (in both English and German) in "Am Rhein." Then in the next track, "Cocaine Computer," the robot kicks out a nasty 80's funk jam after it has assumedly successfully seduced the character from "Am Rhein." Picture the droid from "Short Circuit" pulling a Barry White on Ally Sheedy in a scene of cyborg debauchery and crapulence.

Futureworld is wonderfully lo-fi and direct, and the band's first cohesive album thus far. Trans Am craft "Pong" punk that somehow successfully fuses Shellac and Pan Sonic. Somewhere in a fantasy world, on green pastures of silicon motherboard, in clubs shaped liked RAM chips and transistors, Trans Am is the only rock band with soul, precision, licks, swagger, ambience, and good looks to boot.

-Brent DiCrescenzo