RTX

More than four years after Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema dissolved the original Royal Trux lineup, Herrema resurfaced through RTX, channeling the attitude and bite of Accelerator-era Trux across a fresh roster. Nadav Eisenmann and Jaimo Welch teamed with Herrema for the outfit’s first release, The Transmaniacon, which Drag City—the label long tied to Royal Trux—issued in fall 2004. Brian McKinley and Kurt Midness came aboard for 2007’s Western Xterminator, yielding a rawer and more forceful refinement of the sound shaped by Herrema and her collaborators. Early the next year Western Xterminator resurfaced as RaTX; later that autumn JJ Got Live RaTX, though its title implied otherwise, was not a concert recording and instead supplied additional doses of the group’s characteristic guitar assault and vocal bite.