Autolux: Transit Transit

Autolux

If you can imagine Eliot Smith fronting a trio that swings between Sonic Youth guitar noise and Radiohead knob twiddling, you'll hear in your head the latest from Autolux, an L.A. trio that counts Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke as superfans.

Now that may not sound liker a recipe for success, but Transit Transit is a fun record to listen to.  Only those music listeners who never adapted to Sonic Youth's discord and Radiohead's more experimental electro moments will be puzzled. For the rest of us, Autolux manages to pull the diverse elements together into a coherent style.

The record begins with the title track, a spare series of piano chords over an electronic rhythm that's finally joined by drummer by drummer Carla Azar (yup, a very good female drummer) and some key chords. The record then shifts into serious Sonic Youth territory on "Census," a dark guitar rocker before shifting back into electro noodling with "High Chair."

The record continues in this vein for all 10 tracks. Uniting all the disparate sound is a fairly melancholy shoe-gaze aesthetic from whichever band member sings. Azar and guitarist Greg Edwards sing a bit, but most of the vocals are handled by bassist, Eugene Goreshter, who sounds a lot like Smith, down mood and all.

I doubt you'll ever hear any of the songs on  Transit Transit on the radio... Maybe an indie-steeped XM channel or on an adventurous college station. But this is an album worth hearing -- It's adventurous, experimental and ultimately well done. A rock record that's refreshingly looking forward, not back.