There are a number of ways to interpret ‘Volume X’, the title of the new album by Trans Am. The first is obvious – it is the band’s tenth studio release, comprised of ten songs that display ten unique sides of Phil Manley, Nathan Means and Sebastian Thomson. You can also imagine a volume knob being cranked all the way up, the amplification level for an ideal Trans Am listening session. However, it can also be read as a representation of the band’s remarkable ability to express and even embody, unknown capacities, adopting bold stylistic and aesthetic shifts as a defining tenet of their quarter-century long career.

Trans Am refuse to rely on their legacy as innovators, opting instead to continue to break down established modes of songwriting even if they established those modes themselves. ‘Volume X’ continues in this gloriously contrarian tradition, presenting fans with strange and familiar sounds in new contexts, from kosmische rock to futuristic speed metal to robo-balladry to variants on classic rock that are so warped as to be rendered completely unrecognizable.

‘Anthropocene’ opens the album with 30 seconds of serene synthesizer ambiance before obliterating the stillness with a massive, fuzzy riff anchored by Thomson’s relentless, pounding groove, recorded live in the studio for maximum impact. ‘Volume X’ is full of these types of disarming moments.

Halfway through the sweeping, Kraftwerkian ‘Night Shift’ the song’s syncopated shuffle suddenly becomes a throbbing motorik pulse as two drum takes are overlaid.

‘Backlash’ creeps in with a massive synthesized low-end drone before breaking into a ‘Kill ‘Em All’-inspired thrash riff that is one of the most aggressive passages the band has laid to tape.

The band save their most poignant melody for the stripped down slow jam ‘I’ll Never’, with a vocoded Nathan Means intoning “Its true, I’ll never get over you.”

‘Volume X’ was recorded in spurts over three years, mostly at LCR Studios in San Francisco, where Phil Manley has recorded many other bands as a professional engineer, including Wooden Shjips, Thee Oh Sees and Barn Owl. He also plays in Life Coach with Jon Theodore of Queens Of The Stone Age and Thomson spends his time away from Trans Am playing drums for Baroness.

The LP version is pressed on virgin vinyl with printed innersleeve and free download coupon. A very limited amount of randomly distributed initial copies will be pressed on ‘baby poop yellow’ coloured vinyl.