Four years from now, two hipsters will be sitting outside a sold-out show in some Midwestern town, waiting for the doors to open. They'll start to one-up each other about their favorite bands, when one will make a critical mistake and reveal his ignorance about theTransmission.

"Sweat in the Murder Shop is not their first album? You've got to be pulling my josh chord, Sare. I've been a huge fan since I downloaded that from KazaApple," he says.

"No you stooge, before they even got a record deal, they were on their own label, X-Ray and cut Freakout!Device and Plug in Your Head," Sare counters, her hand-rolled strawberry menthol cigarette nearly falling from her guffawing mouth. "Plug in Your Head was the record that helped launch them back in 2006 -- the first year they played Detroit."

For now, strawberry menthol is a bad trend still a ways off and theTransmission stays close to Lafayette save for the occasional road trip or the upcoming shows in Alabama and Texas, and tentative shows in Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas. In the fall they hope to truck their sci-fi electro garage rock to Detroit, as the wiser Sare will point out, on the back of Plug in Your Head. Releasing this week at Renaissance, the band's sophomore record stays close to the sound of their debut release but employs less sci-fi gadget work that set it apart from others in the garage rock category. Where it eases off on effects, it doesn't slip any on the nail-biting paced and danceable garage rock that makes their shows come alive.

"Mainly, the difference is that this record is a more accurate representation of our live sound," says Christopher Slim, vocalist and bassist. "It's more stripped down -- it's loud, it's fast. It has more of theTransmission's bare nerves: '60s garage punk. Now, it does have some of the electro weirdness that people expect from us, but this record's sound leans more toward our stage sound."

While performing material from their debut Freakout!Device, Slim, guitarist J.Reed and drummer, TheJim, noticed songs like Binary Baby, Sugar and Terror Circuit Hypothesis became crowd favorites. These contained more garage elements and were favorites of theirs as well, influencing them when they sat down to write Plug in Your Head.

For the first record, theTransmis-sion drew heavily on the array of sci-fi and horror movies the trio owns and watches. Bad B movies and attacking zombies lent a hand in writing songs. While not ready to put their collections on eBay, the new album features more realistic B cinema, drawing from exploitation films instead of sci-fi.

"The subject matter of most of the new material involves the sleazier aspects of life that are recognized as 'real.' Addictions, heartbreak, revenge, suicide, bad relationships, betrayal, etc.," says Slim. "Planet Danger and Glow in the Dark Brain are probably the more sci-fi influenced tracks. This album feels more grind house exploitation -- David Friedman/Herschell Gordon Lewis -- rather than Plan 9 from Outer Space -- Ed Wood."

The last year and a half since the release of Freak!Out Device took them from playing local venues Caffe Cottage and Renaissance to shows on the road -- gigging four times in Texas, including a date at Head Hunters in Austin. In June of 2005, they took The Times' Best Alternative Band category. Songs from Freakout!Device have broken into radio college stations across the country and even Canada and Europe. The band also found an unlikely (or perhaps likely) home in two or three paranormal talk radio shows that use their songs before and after commercial breaks.

In the coming year, theTransmission hopes to catch some of the stateside markets where they've received airplay before perhaps hitting the Motor City. But first, they will conquer a new local audience -- the lounge at 307 Downtown. Started as a jazz and blues venue and drawing a more adult crowd than theTransmission's usual haunts, 307 started offering indie shows on Wednesdays.

"Hopefully all of our old friends and fans will be there as well, but overall, yeah ... we really like playing for new audiences in new places," says Slim. "The 307 show is going to be a blast! Hopefully, we can become someone's new favorite band, winning hearts and minds, or maybe just freaking them out with the electro-garage sound."