Go Public – You Are Traffic

The past isn’t real, the future ain’t happening, all we’ve got is right now and Go Public and You Are Traffic: Hey now, don’t dream it’s over. An Atlanta band naming a record after traffic might be like dropping a two-ton anvil right on the biggest Bozo-red clown nose imaginable, but there are levels to every parking deck. Maybe it’s a gridlock of the soul? The close-together shame of becoming a stranger, a slow motion accident of skeleton details? This band’s business—skronky contortions and nope wave deconstructions, prickly wisdom and post-punk pith—is ageless yet absolutely right this very moment, distilling the cosmically unique pointlessness of this number that never should’ve become a year, and magnifying the microscopic glimmer of hope at its furthest corner. Call it dice-roll politics: a saving throw at a craps tempo—bleakly vibrant jams for endtime dance parties.

These men have been in bands. You have maybe heard those bands, if you live in Georgia, or are their friends. Their bands were good; this band is great. Go Public can drop names, a whole catholic education of influences and inspirations, from every acre of the radio dial; but what matters is what comes out, not what goes in. You Are Traffic has few peers; brittle but hard-boiled, it’s a swinging splatterhouse of booksmart, tough guy art with the jittery anxiety of Talking Heads and the restless musicality of This Heat in equal measure. The guitar sounds like a dayglo glass sword, for Christ’s sake. Sean Rawls and Adrian Finch yelp and squelch frantic findings while Sam Gunn and Jay Domingo hold everything down with one-mind chops and muscle memory, culminating in a crucial half-hour of modern American noise unrestrained by any boundaries, be they stylistic or terrestrial. You Are Traffic and you’re reading this on whatever day this is and it’s the perfect time to get personal with Go Public. —Garrett Martin