- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
This may not be an expectations-defying album, but it is a satisfying and well-rounded one that shows once again what a well-oiled man-machine Trans Am is.
-
They still gets bogged down in places, padding the album with go-nowhere interludes and a six-minute centerpiece that's mostly too chaotic to make any impact, but on the album's best tracks, it's great to hear them again, doing what they do best.
-
UncutIt's this pretence of overbearing world dominance which is realised on Thing. [May 2010, p.108]
-
Thing may be Trans Am’s eighth full-length release, but it’s their densest yet. For a record that clocks in at just under 40 minutes, that’s perhaps its greatest success of all.
-
Under The RadarA soundtrack wouldn't be a stretch for Trans Am, their music being largely instrumental anyway, but they do seem to revel in the freedom of the form. [Spring 2010, p.71]
-
Ultimately Thing is an album that exceeds expectations, not to mention revealing new trajectories with every subsequent listen. Whether a heavy indulger or casual fan of electronically based music, it's hard to envisage a better record than Thing emerging from any of its sub-genres this year.
-
For the duration of their career, Trans Am have described landscapes as if from a balloon, as if the universe is readily recognizable, and yet they've continued to do so with an oddly hued and surreal perspective. Thing welcomingly continues this delicate balance between the strange and the familiar.
-
The implication is that there was some kind of journey involved in getting from Point A to Point B in Trans Am’s spaceship of Douglas Adams-worthy quirks. But after twelve tracks totaling a brief-seeming thirty eight minutes, and despite some interesting routes, it feels like we’ve barely left the launch pad.
-
Pulsating with synths and guitars and buttressed by determined stomp, Trans Am’s latest robotic brain-fry is a study in sudden sound.
-
Still, don't expect the bruising cut (or any herein) to set any tone whatsoever as Thing arguably represents Trans Am's most eclectic offering yet.
-
Most tracks play like one elongated idea and only a few songs sound fully fleshed-out, giving Thing a half-baked, underwhelming vibe.