For the last installment in their loosely defined “decades” trilogy, as well as their return to their Drag City home, Hagerty and Herrema took the remaining dough that Virgin owed them, retreated again inside their Virginia compound, and produced an album inspired by the sounds of the ’80s. In short, Accelerator sounds like nothing else in their repertoire (or anyone else’s, for that matter), with the help of a mixing device called the Spectrum Analyzer, and keyboardist Tim McClain. To non-studio techies it sounds like some sort of steam-punk machine that turns songs into compressed, crunchy pop tunes, yet still far out enough to feel like a Trux album. Whatever it is, it simply transformed their songs to a nearly timeless quality, and is the reason that Accelerator sounds like it actually could have come out in the ’80s, or just yesterday. There’s a reason why Primal Scream, Sleigh Bells, the Kills, and many more are indebted to this version of Royal Trux, and it’s mainly due to Accelerator. Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie was such a huge Trux fan that he even included a song on Primal Scream’s 2000 album XTRMNTR called “Accelerator” that is more than an obvious homage. Where Sweet Sixteen required patience and investment to become acquainted with its long and somewhat drawn-out songs, Accelerator is all about instant gratification. It’s an album that either grabs you from the get-go or doesn’t at all. This isn’t to say that there aren’t layers to unpeel and discover like there were on Sweet Sixteen; there are, it’s just more fun and there’s less labor involved in doing so, yet it’s just as rewarding. Musically, rather than show off their chops in the traditional rock ‘n’ roll song structures, as they had done on their previous two albums, the songs here are repetitive to the point of being hypnotic. As such, it’s often impossible to know if you’re listing to the beginning, middle, or end of any of its nine tracks. Lyrically, Hagerty and Herrema show a much more fun and goofier side, as well. The two catchiest songs employ Herrema and the band as backup chorus (featuring Rian Murphy) engaging in call-and-response. On “The Banana Question” Herrema basically repeats over and over “Is that a question? Is that a f***in’ question,” in response to the chorus chanting the song’s title. Album highlight, and Side 1, closer “Juicy, Juicy, Juice” sucks the listener into its sweet and sugary vortex. Aside from a few indecipherable bridges spoke/sung by Hagerty, the song is essentially just a loop of the chorus, ad infinitum. It actually sounds like it could be a jingle for an ’80s juice-box commercial, albeit a warped Royal Trux-inspired version of it. Only a couple songs seem to be outliers of the grand approach here. The acoustic and harmonica-featuring “Yellow Kid,” which was as close as Royal Trux got to Dylan territory, could have easily been right at home on Cats And Dogs. The beautiful, and notably un-compressed-sounding “Stevie (For Steven S.)” (apparently a tribute to Steven Seagal!) wouldn’t have been out of place on Sweet Sixteen, and is so Steely Dan-smooth it begs the question why the band never explored a bit more of this avenue. If any reissue in the history of reissues ever deserved to include the original mixes or demos, Accelerator is definitely it. Until then (and that’s not likely to happen, frankly), there’s more than enough pleasurable returns with the original article — easily one of the zaniest-sounding records of the last 20 years.