Review: T.R.A.M. - Lingua Franca

One of the great things about working for a music store is that when there's a clerical error, I know them. This time there was a wonderful clerical error in the computer regarding the debut album by Tosin Abasi's (Animals as Leaders) progressive metal/jazz fusion project T.R.A.M., which allowed me to get it about four days early of it's release date.

T.R.A.M. is the acronym of the members of the band; wind instrumentalist Adrian Terrazas (The Mars Volta), guitarist's Javier Reyes and Tosin Abasi (Animals as Leaders) and drummer Eric Moore (Suicidal Tendencies).

I first heard of T.R.A.M. back in July through the release of an unmastered track, "Endeavor" on the Animals as Leaders facebook page. I was blown away from the beginning and the album version (which now features a flute, guitar duet intro) is even better. I've been waiting for this record and when I put it in my CD player, my excitement was well satisfied.

The sound of T.R.A.M. is a little hard to classify. It sounds metal but at the same time, not. If you crank up the distortion and replace Saxophone solos with guitar solos, this could be another Animals as Leaders album. Lingua Franca, however, is something more than that. It is very layered and textured with tasty guitar licks and sensual sax lines. The beginning of album opener "Seven Ways Till Sunday" is undeniably metallic until about 36 seconds in, when the chuggy guitar riff forfeits it's dominance to some beautiful chords which then are replaced by Terrazas' sax.

The biggest surprise for me was Moore's drumming. I've seen Suicidal Tendencies live, with Moore and I don't remember hearing anything that sounded that amazing. In an interview with Metal Sucks, Abasi said that the recording session was probably the first time that Moore had heard the music.

We sent him some demos without any drums, and the arrangements were different. So he might have listened through the ideas maybe once but I’m fairly certain that when he got down there he was hearing the stuff for the first time so it was all new to him.

Abasi went on to say that they would record Moore playing various interpretations of the material. He was only in the studio for a day and a half before having to go out on the road with Suicidal Tendencies, so the band picked the drum takes they liked best then comped the songs to fit.

This band has changed what constitutes progressive instrumental metal music. Though I would classify them more as a Jazz group, it's not an easy classification to make. I think that if the stars align and T.R.A.M. is able to hit the road, they would bring in a whole mess of fans. It can bring jazz fans an appreciation for metal and metal fans an appreciation for jazz.

Lingua Franca comes out Feb. 28th through Sumerian Records.