Brighton may be TRAAMS’ surrogate home, their meshing of krautrock complexity and an indie sensibility has made them reliable regulars on the local DIY scene over the last few years, and this new one is out on Brighton’s very own Fat Cat Records. But on their 2013 debut Grin, it was very much their original home of Chichester that was the main influence in forming that album's sound. The frustration of growing up in a vacuum, and wanting to create art in a place that offers no opportunities or places to do so. It’s this feeling they harnessed to create their affronting and abrasive sound.

 

With the small-town ennui exorcised from the band’s psychology, on Modern Dancing, TRAAMS feel much freer. More content with their place in music and the world generally. Guitarist and singer Stu Hopkins describes it as “a more positive record” and while it may be less overtly angry or frustrated, this still seems like something of an overstatement. Instead it occupies an emotionally ambiguous zone, more interested in the physical aspects of music. It almost completely circumvents emotional intelligence and goes straight for the subconscious operations happening in the body. “I see you dancing”, Hopkins observes on ‘Modern Dancing’, “and I know you can’t help it”. It could very easily be the listeners of the very record he’s singing on that he’s addressing, pre-empting the automatic response his own music creates.

 

It all starts with a rumble of static and clattering percussion, almost like a palette cleanser before the album starts. But instead offering a sorbet, its more like someone trying to sandpaper off the nerve endings on your tongue. With that out of the way we can get to business with ‘Costner’, there’s no slow atmospheric opener here, just a solid piece of self-propelled dance-punk rhythms as the guitar draws out long and sustained notes.

 

Hopkins’ voice has a catch and bark in his voice that is reminiscent of Yannis Philipakis on the first Foals record. Much like that band early on, there’s also an interest in the effects of repetition in lyrics. TRAAMS lyrics are largely built up from these repeated phrases, the rhythms and cadences the words create is of just as much interest as what their actual meaning is. But married with the music they can very effectively create a particular mood or atmosphere. ‘Succulent Thunder Anthem’ warns “that there’s ice on the road / please don’t slip / and break your neck”, and it sounds suitably threatening and ominous sang along with a pulsing bassline. You get the sense that secretly Hopkin’s is hoping you really do slip. There are the typical expressions you get in a radio friendly song as well, except the context of the music surrounding them sets them slightly aslant. ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme (Love)’ could be a punk tune about unrequited love in the spirit of a Buzzcocks track, but the chord progression never goes exactly where you expect it will.

 

The rhythm section is what drives all of the songs here, the taught interplay between the bass and drums allows for the guitar and vocals to be free roaming and looser. It’s a much more streamlined effort than its predecessor. There are no seven-minute-plus krautrock jams complete with extended bass solos like on Grin. Lean and stripped of fat, nothing is added that doesn’t perform some kind of essential function.

 

Almost counter-intuitively the title track is the band sounding their most fatigued. The tempo is lethargic and the guitar ops for the loose-wrist strumming of indie bands such as Pavement. ‘Bite Mark’ is built from stiff rhythm stabs and a guitar part that brings a bit of warmth, only for it to be quickly and mercilessly snatched away. As the song progresses it slowly begins to defrost, everything becomes slacker and more relaxed, as if all the muscle tension is slowly being released.

 

The central contradiction of ‘Modern Dancing’ is what makes it such a rewarding listen worthy of repeated listens. On one side it’s a very human album, three guys writing together in a room and coming out with a record that sounds very much just like that. But its also has a cold methodology, producing the mechanics that create movement in the body while also celebrating how music is able to do this, the Modern Dancing referred to in the title.

Louis Ormesher